In November 2023, Elon Musk described the Tesla Cybertruck as “an armoured personnel carrier from the future – what Bladerunner would have driven,” seemingly thinking that the main character of Blade Runner is, in fact, called Bladerunner. But his dodgy sci-fi inspirations don’t end there, and recently they’ve seen him accused of worse than a small movie trivia slip-up.

Over the weekend, The Crow filmmaker Alex Proyas called out the SpaceX billionaire on his own platform (X), for allegedly stealing his Tesla designs from a 2004 movie he directed, I, Robot. If you haven’t seen I, Robot, it basically involves Will Smith trying to avert a robot uprising, after a bunch of highly intelligent, humanlike service robots gain a will of their own.

Last Friday, Elon Musk trotted out a bunch of similar droids at a Hollywood Tesla event, where they poured drinks and chatted with guests (although there’s been some scepticism about how ‘autonomous’ they actually were). Speaking at the event, Musk said of the Optimus robot: “It can be a teacher, babysit your kids, walk your dog, mow your lawn, get the groceries, just be your friend, serve drinks. Whatever you can think of, it will do.”

So what was Proyas worried about? Did he suspect that Musk was stealing his intellectual property, by making an IRL version of I, Robot come to life? Not quite. He did, however, point out that the Optimus designs look very similar to the bots in I, Robot, minus the expressive facial features.

Not convinced? Fair enough. Humanlike robot design often converges on a similar, sleek form, with some Elon fans pointing to older films like Fritz Lang’s Metropolis as evidence that he didn’t steal directly from Proyas. But what about the Tesla Cybercab, that looks remarkably like the car Will Smith drives, or his proposed Robovan, which also looks very similar to a vehicle in the film? Or the fact that he literally called the event We, Robot (although that might equally have been a reference to Isaac Asimov’s I, Robot)?

I, Robot production designer seemed to agree on the uncanny similarities, reposting a side-by-side comparison to Instagram. “MAYBE IT IS JUST ME? Or should I feel honoured that Elon found some inspiration in my I, Robot designs?” he wrote in the caption. “Probably my imagination running wild. Well either way it’s fun to watch.”

Whether Elon’s design team did pull directly from I, Robot, or merely stumbled on the designs by sci-fi osmosis, we might never know for sure. At least one good thing might come out of the controversy, though: maybe it will inspire people to go back and give I, Robot a rewatch, and they’ll be reminded of the dystopian consequences if all this tech gets out of control.