Elon Musk has a new take on law enforcement, and it involves zero prison cells and a whole lot of robotic supervision. At Tesla's annual shareholder meeting last month, he floated an idea that sounds ripped from a science fiction novel: give everyone a free Optimus robot that simply follows them around and stops them from committing crimes. No courtrooms, no incarceration, just constant AI-powered oversight.

"If you say, like, you now get a free Optimus and it's just gonna follow you around and stop you from doing crime, but other than that you get to do anything. It's just gonna stop you from committing crime, that's really it," Musk explained to shareholders.

And he wasn't kidding around.

Before diving into the wilder implications, Musk acknowledged the obvious: this sounds bonkers, and yes, people will twist his words. "Some of these things I say will obviously be taken out of context and using snippets and, you know, sitting around, but whatever. I'm still going to say them." Fair warning delivered, he kept going.

What Musk was proposing wasn't just a nifty robot butler or an AI kitchen assistant. He was suggesting a complete reimagining of criminal justice—replacing one of society's oldest institutions with mobile, never-sleeping robots that enforce behavior in real-time.

"You don't have to put people in prisons," he said. "It's pretty wild to think of all the possibilities, but I think it's clearly the future."

Let that sink in. Instead of physical confinement, Musk envisions continuous digital oversight where everyone gets their own robotic monitor. But here's the twist: it doesn't restrict your freedom, it enables almost all of it. "You get to do anything," Musk emphasized, "except commit crimes."

Optimus, first unveiled in 2022, is designed as a general-purpose humanoid robot with autonomous capabilities. Musk has claimed the robot could eventually outperform the best human surgeons. "Optimus will ultimately be better than the best human surgeon with a level of precision that is beyond human," he said. But surgical precision is just one piece of his larger puzzle.

The Tesla CEO went even further, suggesting Optimus could help eliminate poverty by delivering affordable medical care and services without human error. "Optimus will actually eliminate poverty. Optimus will actually give people incredible medical care."

So where does all this lead? Musk described his vision as "Banksian," referencing author Iain M. Banks and his "Culture" series, where AI and robots coexist in a mostly utopian future. "If you're curious, like, what do I think the future is probably like? I think it's probably a bit like that," Musk said, also tipping his hat to sci-fi legends Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein.

For anyone tracking the bleeding edge of technology—or looking to invest in what's coming next—this isn't just another off-the-cuff Musk moment. It's a signal. A world where robots function as doctors, caretakers, and mobile crime prevention units is creeping out of science fiction and into serious development. From AI-driven precision surgery to robot-assisted law enforcement, Tesla's Optimus represents a potential future where entire industries get rewritten from scratch.

Whether you think this sounds like a technological utopia or a dystopian nightmare probably depends on how comfortable you are with a robot knowing your every move. Either way, Musk is betting big that the future looks a lot less like today's criminal justice system and a lot more like a sci-fi novel come to life.