Elon Musk recently unveiled Tesla’s latest humanoid robot model, Optimus, demonstrating its newfound capability to independently fold shirts. In a video shared on Musk’s social media platform, the Tesla CEO showcased the humanoid robot effortlessly retrieving a black t-shirt from a bucket and skillfully folding it with ease. The video has left many users impressed and captivated by the incredible feats of skill portrayed by the robot. But the excitement is tempered by the fact that the Optimus in the video wasn’t operating autonomously, as an engineer on the side was controlling it.
Instead, the t-shirt folding demonstration exemplifies what the company calls “human-machine collaboration.” As CNET reports, Musk showed off a prototype version of the robot on Friday during Tesla’s 2022 AI Day. That has a sleeker look and will use the same AI engineers have developed for its cars. The tethered, wheeled robot appeared to walk independently, wave to the crowd, and even dance.
However, while the talent demonstrated in the video is impressive and could one day lead to useful robots that help humans with tedious tasks like housework and laundry, it’s not the type of robotic future people have been hoping for when they see movies such as I, Robot, or Terminator. And it isn’t the kind of future that will come about soon either, says Gene Munster, a partner at the venture capital firm Loup Ventures.
He points out that the current incarnation of Optimus is still an engineering prototype that needs further refinement and testing before it can be released to consumers. “Most importantly, the Optimus we have now cannot be programmed to do things other than what it is told to do,” he writes on Twitter. “That’s why it was designed with a limited number of pre-programmed moves.”
Musk has also been critical of other flashy robot demonstrations, including this one, calling them misleading and more of a publicity stunt than anything else. But he admits in his follow-up tweet that he doesn’t expect people to “get excited about a flashy demonstration of a robot that can do nothing.”
For those who are still hopeful, Musk assures that the future for Optimus is bright. He says the robot will be able to perform “a wide range of tasks” once it’s fully refined and doesn’t need the highly artificial constraints placed on it for the demo, such as the fixed table with a single article of clothing. “The next version will be able to do this in any environment,” he writes. “It won’t require a fixed table with a box with only one shirt.” (Musk owns 12% of the stock in the electric car and energy companies, which have been teetering on bankruptcy for more than three years.) The Tesla CEO is also working on a new, autonomous, mass-produced SUV.
