In 2021, Elon Musk unveiled a humanoid robot that turned out to be a guy in a suit. A year later, we got a look at a prototype version of the robot—not a guy in a suit this time—which we said was "kind of neat" thanks primarily to its ability to walk around slowly without falling over. At a Tesla event called We, Robot last night, Musk trotted out a whole squad of the machines, alongside some absolutely wild promises about what they'll be able to do.
"It'll be able to do anything you want," Musk said during the presentation. "It can be a teacher or babysit your kids. It can walk your dog, mow your lawn, get the groceries. Just be your friend—serve drinks, whatever you can think of, it will do. It's gonna be awesome. I think this will be the biggest product ever, of any kind. Because I think everyone, of the eight billion people on Earth, everyone, they're gonna want their Optimus buddy. Maybe two.
"One of the things we wanted to show tonight was that Optimus is not a canned video. It's not walled off. The Optimus robots will walk among you ... You'll be able to walk right up to them, and they'll serve drinks at the bar."
pic.twitter.com/VK9vlGF0MsOctober 11, 2024
And an Optimus robot did in fact serve drinks at a bar during an afterparty. But with one tiny catch: According to Jalopnik, the bartending robot, and others at the event, were being controlled by Tesla employees the entire time.
That's not confirmed at this point, as far as I know, but the smooth movements and naturalistic conversations with partygoers give off extremely strong "remote control" vibes. Others on social media had similar reactions:
Any bets on where Tesla is keeping the dudes teleoperating these robots?pic.twitter.com/a4aJBAoN87October 11, 2024
Not wholly AI? Not at all AI. Totally worthy to celebrate low latency remote control but totally dishonest to demo these as autonomous robots—call it the parlor trick it is. https://t.co/EdXuSO8KWAOctober 11, 2024
Movements were pretty fluid, so the hardware and actuators seem quite capable, but it’s also clear from all the videos posted that there was a human operating each #Optimus remotely while interacting with the various guests. $TSLA #TeslaRobotaxi #TeslaOptimus https://t.co/7v1tGM1c8hOctober 11, 2024
As Ars Technica pointed out, Musk didn't say during his presentation that the robots were AI-powered or autonomous in any way, a point he surely would have hammered on if it were true. Which isn't to say that Musk is deeply committed to truth and honesty—the historical record rather strongly suggests otherwise—but I imagine it would be a little too easy to get caught spinning bullshit when dozens of people are walking around in close proximity to these things. It is possible the company simply wants to encourage speculation, or perhaps avoid tipping off competitors about how far along its robots really are, but given Musk's predilection for making big, unkept promises in the past, I don't think that's likely.
Look, is it possible that autonomous bipedal robots will one day walk among us, taking our dogs for strolls, picking up our groceries, and mowing our kids? Sure, why not. But is it going to happen next year, or in the next 10 years? Much like fully autonomous self-driving cars and people on Mars, I sure wouldn't bet on it.
I've reached out to Tesla for more information on the robots at last night's event, and will update if I receive a reply.
