The Robots Tesla Used to Serve Drinks at the Cybercab Event Had Some Human Help
Tesla’s Optimus robot may not have advanced as far as the company would like you to think.
The EV maker’s humanoid droids show-stealing performance at the Cybercab unveiling wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, according to Electrek. Some of the most impressive aspects of the Optimus performance appear to have been human-assisted.
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Following the presentation portion of Thursday’s “We, Robot” event, Tesla’s CEO Elon Musk sent several Optimus robots out into the crowd to mingle with the gathered group of investors and fans. But the droids did more than walk among the live audience. They also danced, served drinks, and even talked to guests. It offered the company a chance to show just how far Optimus has come—except that it hasn’t come that far yet.
What could have represented an important milestone for Tesla’s A.I. efforts has instead become a fresh embarrassment for the company. In a post on X, attendee Robert Scoble wrote that a human was “remote assisting” the Optimus droid that had made him a drink (though he didn’t seem particularly put off by this). This claim was backed up by a note the next day by Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas, who wrote (via Electrek): “It is our understanding that these robots were not operating entirely autonomously—but relied on tele-ops (human intervention) so it was more a demonstration of degrees of freedom and agility.”
It should be noted that Tesla did not make much of an effort to hide that Optimus wasn’t operating fully autonomously. One of the robots told Scoble it couldn’t “disclose” how much of its actions were the result of A.I. before adding that “it might be some.” The Verge also points out that the robots had different voices, suggesting they were controlled by multiple people. Thursday night wasn’t as bad as the time Tesla sent out a human dressed as Optimus, but it’s yet more proof that the full autonomous operation of the humanoid droid has more potential than reality.
Tesla, as is the company’s wont, did not respond to a request for comment from Robb Report.
In the lead-up to “We, Robot,” there was a sense that the event was meant to assuage investor fear over the company’s long-delayed robotaxi. We finally got to see what the two-person Cybercab will look like on Thursday—along with the surprise Robovan—but Wall Street was unimpressed. Tesla’s stock price fell 9 percent the day after the event. If that wasn’t bad enough, Alex Proyas, the director of I, Robot—an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Isaac Asimov, one of Musk’s favorite writers—has also accused the company of ripping off design work from his movie for Optimus, the Cybercab and Robovan.
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