While it was the Cybertaxi and Cybertruck that took center stage at Tesla’s recent launch, attendees were also much taken Elon Musk’s little army of Optimus robots.
But the buzz around mingling with the robots has been somewhat dampened by the revelation that they were not powered by AI, but by humans.
A video has emerged from the event in California last week, in which a robot tells a guest that it’s being controlled, and Musk is already being called out for dishonesty.
Parlor Trick
In the hours after the event, investors started to question Musk’s optimistic delivery schedule for his robotaxis. But then rumblings also started as to why Musk didn’t own the fact that his robots were actually being controlled by humans in suits.
Fortune has shared the post on X in which an attendee asks a bartender robot if it is being controlled by a human. It replies: “Today I’m assisted by a human, I’m not yet fully autonomous.”
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Josh Wolfe, co-founder of science and tech venture capital firm, Lux Capital, was among those responding and said: “Totally worthy to celebrate low latency remote control but totally dishonest to demo these as autonomous robots – call it the parlor trick it is.”
Fortune nods to a video shared by Musk in January of one of the robots folding a shirt: Eagle-eyed viewers caught the hand of the operator in frame.
Are We Being Churlish?
Others, though, have leapt to Musk’s defense and argue that the robots’ abilities are a massive achievement and not simply the “metal marionettes” that Fortune has labelled them as.
One, Omar Qazi, wrote: “If you’re not impressed with tele operated Optimus, go try and make your own robot and try and make it walk through a crowded event without hurting anyone.”
High Hopes for a Living
Musk has huge ambitions for the robots, which he suggests could be priced at $20,000 and will be sold in the millions.
This could be a $25 trillion business for the tech billionaire to add to his portfolio.
Inspiration or Imitation?
However, it looks like there are some who will definitely not be buying.
The Musk event was called “We, Robot,” which is an obvious nod to the 2004 blockbuster film, “I, Robot” (and its Isaac Asimov-penned source material). But the director was not flattered but pissed with how similar Musk’s robots look to his on-screen creations. In fact, the vehicles do too, he said, quipping on X: “Hey Elon, can I have my designs back please?
The post currently has 6.5 million views and a heated volley of comments that Musk is probably enjoying right at this moment.
