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Big News / Small Bytes

Jan 16
byVictor Tangermann
/ Robots & Machines



Follow My Lead


ELON MUSK POSTS VIDEO OF OPTIMUS ROBOT, GETS BUSTED FOR FAKERY

byVictor Tangermann


IT NEEDED A *SUBSTANTIAL* AMOUNT OF HELP.

Jan 16
Elon Musk via X


IT NEEDED A *SUBSTANTIAL* AMOUNT OF HELP.


ROBOT TRICKERY

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has posted a video of the company's latest-generation
Optimus humanoid robot painstakingly folding a shirt on a table.

But there's one glaring problem: it needed a substantial amount of help, as
eagle-eyed viewers quickly pointed out — and which Musk himself admitted after
criticism.

"Optimus folds a shirt," Musk wrote in the caption of his initial video posted
to his social media network X. The clip shows Optimus pulling a T-shirt out of a
nearby basket and carefully folding it.

But viewers quickly spotted a gloved hand in the bottom right of the video,
strongly suggesting the robot was being directly controlled by a nearby
engineer.



"Important note: Optimus cannot yet do this autonomously, but certainly will be
able to do this fully autonomously and in an arbitrary environment," the
self-anointed "chief troll officer" added in a follow-up tweet just over 20
minutes later.

It's unclear if Musk posted his follow-up in reaction to users pointing out the
trickery, or whether he was planning to post it regardless. Either way, it's not
exactly a good look, given Musk's tendency to contort the truth.






BIPEDAL BABYSITTER

It's an important distinction, as remotely operated humanoid robots have been
around for many decades. A mechanically deft robot is neat, sure, but
economically pointless if it needs a human laborer operating it.

In other words, Tesla still has a considerable amount of work left to do for its
robot to adapt to an "arbitrary environment" — which is striking given all of
Musk's big talk about AI.

The contrast is especially great when Optimus is pitted against competing
humanoid robots such as Boston Dynamics' bipedal robot Atlas, which can help out
construction workers and deftly play a game of "the floor is lava."

Musk overpromising and underdelivering is nothing new. The real yardstick, which
he conveniently ignored in his original tweet, is what such a robot is capable
of doing on its own.

Tesla is aiming to have Optimus be "capable of performing tasks that are unsafe,
repetitive or boring." Needing a human to perform those same tasks to remotely
control the robot couldn't be further from that vision.

More on Optimus: Tesla Unveils New Humanoid Robot



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