Elon Musk’s Optimus bot stole the show at Tesla’s robotaxi unveil—but the AI was all smoke and mirrors.
On paper, Thursday night’s “We, Robot” event may have belonged to Tesla’s robotaxi, but the real star of the show was Optimus.
Elon Musk’s humanoid robot wowed attendees as a half dozen or so navigated their way safely through the crowd at Warner Bros. studio lot in Hollywood entirely untethered.
Just two years ago, the droid couldn’t even make it onto a stage on its own. But the latest iteration was talking with guests, playing rock-paper-scissors or simply pouring a drink from a tap for the thirsty—before coolly flashing a peace sign with its metallic hand.
“This will be the biggest product ever—of any kind,” Musk predicted on stage that night.
He wanted attendees to see the new and improved version of the robot for the first time, without relying on canned videos taken of the machine operating inside the walls of Tesla’s facilities.
“The Optimus robots will walk among you, please be nice,” Musk added.
NOT THE FIRST CONTROVERSY FOR OPTIMUS
While fans attending the event were duly impressed by the Cybercab and the larger Robovan—which was not pre-announced—autonomous vehicles have been shown off before. Waymo even operates them commercially in select cities.
By comparison, nothing felt more futuristic than interacting with a creation only known from science fiction movies and books.
“Crazy, I’m talking to a robot,” said John Stringer, the founder of Tesla Owners Silicon Valley.
It was a stunning display of technological progress that transported attendees to the future, were it not for one thing: The machines were not in fact exhibiting any true artificial intelligence at all.
They were voiced and operated by humans remotely wearing special suits that translated their movements to the droid.
“Today I’m assisted by a human, I’m not yet fully autonomous,” one Optimus operator admitted on video that was shot by a guest who asked.
For many it was reminiscent of another controversy, when Musk shared in January footage of Optimus folding a shirt. Keen observers quickly pointed to the hand of its operator, which failed to be cropped out.
‘CALL IT THE PARLOR TRICK IT IS’
Tesla has been training its robots with the help of people using specialized feedback suits, but Musk gave no indication on Thursday that the robots were operating by any other force than the AI with which they were trained.
He certainly did not mention that the ones in the crowd were essentially metal marionettes.
“Totally worthy to celebrate low latency remote control,” posted Josh Wolfe, co-founder of Lux Capital, “but totally dishonest to demo these as autonomous robots—call it the parlor trick it is.”
Take care!
Prof. Carl Boniface
Elon Musk’s robotaxi unveil:
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