News hardware Elon Musk Is Proud To Show Off His Humanoid Robot Tesla Without Realizing It’s Ridiculous
During the Tesla AI Day event that took place this weekend, Elon Musk’s Tesla Optimus robot took its first steps on stage. And the least we can say is that this prototype still has a long way to go before it is fully functional.
Already present in the field of (semi) autonomous electric cars, space conquest, neural interfaces or even satellite Internet connection, Elon Musk collects high-tech fads. Often this is successful, but not always.
One wonders where it will lead his desire to revolutionize robotics through humanoid machines equipped with a “brain”, in other words an advanced artificial intelligence, developed by Tesla. During AI Day, an event that took place last weekend in Palo Alto, the boss of the company presented two prototypes of his Optimus robot. But for the moment, perplexity is in order.
A robot more active on video than live
The first model of Tesla Optimus is a prototype dated February 2022 according to the chronology put forward by Tesla. On the scene, the robot advances arthritically and its movements are very jerky. The live demonstration is very limited and it is mainly through a presentation video that we can see him giving packages to Tesla employees, watering plants or even storing items in a factory.
Elon Musk then unveiled a second prototype: this time, the robot was brought on stage by three technicians, as the android was obviously unable to move on its own. If it has a complete body without visible components, this model of Tesla Optimus seems even less operational than the previous one.
A demonstration far from impressing
Probably aware that the advancement of these robots would undoubtedly disappoint the public, Elon Musk warned those in the room asking them to be lenient. For the boss of Tesla, however, the presentation was able to surpass that of last year, which was not very complicated sincein August 2021, it was a man in a suit who arrived on stage, mimicking a very awkward “robot dance”.
At least this year Tesla had something concrete to show the audience.. Elon Musk has announced that Tesla Optimus will be “more impressive in a few weeks”but when we know that its objective is to make it a domestic robot, “some kind of friend to hang out with”we say to ourselves that it will take a little more time to really convince.
Where we discover that the dancer in costume was a prototype.
Elon Musk also specified that his robot would cost “probably less than $20,000”a sum that is both low in the field of advanced robotics, but all the same particularly high for who dares to imagine such an android in a domestic sphere.
Especially since for many robotics experts, the choice of a humanoid robot is not necessarily the most appropriate to provide a stable and reliable experience on a daily basis: “this thing is going to fall a lot”in particular summarized the AI researcher Filip Piekniewski on his Twitter account. He did not hesitate to call the presentation of Tesla prototypes a scam.
This Tesla AI day is next level cringeworthy. Complete and utter scam. Who on earth believes this bullshit anymore?
– Filip Piekniewski (@ filippie509) October 1, 2022
We will probably have to resign ourselves to continuing to water our plants ourselves in the years to come.