Last week’s highly hyped Tesla “We, Robot” event showed the world newer versions of its technology, including the humanoid Optimus robots. CEO Elon Musk spoke poetically about their eventual autonomous future, but reports coming from the event called into question just how autonomous said robots are. According to sources such as Bloomberg, Tesla’s Optimus robots were, in fact, remotely controlled by human operators throughout the event.
That event demonstrated that while Tesla’s robots were capable of doing some things by themselves, most of their actions were performed with the help of humans. While Artificial Intelligence was in control of the walking ability of the Optimus robots, other functionalities, such as serving drinks and holding conversations, were quite dependent on human operators providing support from a distance. Therefore, this use of AI in control with human assistance raises questions about the capability of Tesla’s humanoid robots.
Tesla’s Optimus Robots Still Rely on Human Assistance
Perhaps the most remarkable moments of the whole demonstration were how fluently and logically the robots were capable of speaking with the participants of the event. Whereas AI has considerably developed in its capabilities to process natural languages, the smoothness of such interactions suggested that there really was someone humanwise backing them up. In fact, one of the robots openly admitted to being assisted by a human, stating, “I am being supported by a human today; I am not fully autonomous yet.”
But even with that show-and-tell, Musk avoided saying anything definitive about Optimus robots being autonomous during the event. He did say, however, that having the humanoid robots walk among participants for the first time was a surreal experience. Musk seems to dream of those robots one day being able to accomplish many different tasks on their own. It’s apparently a dream best considered very long-term.
Tesla also didn’t claim complete autonomy for the robots on the event day, neither did Musk. Human intervention or well-known as tele-ops is a common method during the innovation of humanoid robots. Commonly, it is for training purposes. Tesla focused more in the event to show the agility of the robots and possible freedom of movement but not complete autonomy.
At the same event, Tesla unveiled its highly anticipated Cybercab at a star-studded event in Los Angeles, signaling a major shift towards autonomous electric vehicles.
