Elon Musk admits new Optimus video is not what it appears

Elon Musk has Xeeted out a video of Tesla’s Optimus humanoid robotic folding a t-shirt – which might be nice, however then adopted up with a second Xeet clarifying that the video is way much less spectacular than it seems – after being known as out by observers.

Dozens of corporations are actually pushing to make 2024 the yr when humanoid robots take their first wobbly steps into warehouses and onto manufacturing facility flooring, and begin doing precise helpful work – actual duties that change human labor.

But with a purpose to do this, they will need to be taught to be taught; bipedal strolling and yoga balancing are one factor, however with the ability to take directions and go and do one thing helpful is one other altogether. This is why Figure CEO Brett Adcock claimed a “ChatGPT second” for humanoid robotics every week and a half in the past, when he confirmed the corporate’s 01 robotic autonomously working a espresso machine, having realized solely by watching a bunch of video of people doing the identical job.

Now, Elon Musk has responded by exhibiting Tesla’s Optimus robotic doing one thing lots trickier: pulling a t-shirt out of a basket and neatly folding it, heralding a future through which these humanoids are staple servants in well-heeled houses, taking good care of routine chores and making everybody’s lives fantastic till the revolution comes they usually begin folding the mistaken socks collectively out of spite.

The downside is, Optimus is not folding that shirt by itself. There’s a human driving it through telepresence, as Musk famous within the follow-up Xeet above, some 23 minutes later. Or placing it one other means, some 20 minutes after “TeslaLisa” identified the telepresence management glove poking into body.

Autonomous vs telepresence was a distinction Adcock was significantly eager to level out – and with good purpose.

Which makes it a fairly complicated launch from Tesla from the place we stand; in fact Optimus can do something from the Macarena to presumably even tying shoelaces with a human operator driving it – the {hardware} seems able to every kind of high-quality motion controls – as do lots of the different humanoids within the race.

But that is not the arduous half – or certainly the helpful half, or certainly the brand new half. The large query is “what can Optimus do by itself?”

Over the approaching months and years, we’re bracing for an avalanche of little movies like this as humanoids throughout the board begin to choose up fundamental talents, then extra advanced duties, and finally whole self-directed jobs in dynamic, doubtlessly even chaotic environments.

We are very a lot on the pre-dawn stage of normal goal humanoids, however as Toyota’s beautiful “giant habits mannequin” progress exhibits, embodied AIs are rapidly leveling up their capability to observe and be taught. Given a bunch of examples of people doing a given process, they’re able to determining what success and failure appear like, then working hundreds of thousands of simulations to determine learn how to use their very own “our bodies” to get the identical job performed, correcting for errors alongside the best way.

That’s the thrilling bit, and that is what we have to see from Tesla – not what the {hardware} can do with a human driver on the wheel. And actually not movies that kinda, sorta, possibly indicate autonomy, solely to make clear that it is human-operated 20 minutes after being known as out by eagle-eyed observers on the Xitter.

To be clear, Tesla has critical chops in AI and autonomy, and we do not count on it will be lengthy earlier than Optimus begins buttering its personal toast and mastering the electrical drill and the egg beater. But this one’s simply not look.

Source: Tesla