Tesla Lied Again About Its Optimus Robots

© Tesla < p>Tesla's Cybercab launch party promised to be memorable, but not necessarily for the reasons Musk's company had hoped. At the heart of the event were robots Optimus stole the show a bit from the highly anticipated vehicle, mingling with the crowd, serving drinks and even conversing with the guests. A performance that could have been revolutionary if it hadn't not been largely… staged. Behind the apparent autonomy of these machines was actually a well-orchestrated human manipulation.

Not so autonomous automatons

The illusion was almost perfect: the Optimus wandered among the guests, interacting verbally and physically with disconcerting ease. However, clues betrayed the deception. The robots' voices, all different, responded without the slightest latency, their gestures perfectly synchronized with their words. A technological feat ? Far from it!

According to the testimonies collected by the site Electrek, the reality is much less impressive. Robert Scoble, an attendee at the event, reported that the robots were in fact ” remotely assisted ” by humans. This information was corroborated by Adam Jonas, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, who mentioned the use of ” teleoperation ” to control the Optimus. Tesla has thus replayed for us the Mechanical Turk, version 3.0, an automaton presented in the 18th century as being capable of playing chess. In reality, a real chess player, made of flesh and blood, was hidden in the cabinet under the robot.

A feeling of déjà vu? Indeed, what happened during the evening was reminiscent of the initial presentation of the Optimus project, during which Elon Musk had brought on stage an individual disguised as a robot. A wink that could suggest that Tesla assumes the theatrical nature of his demonstrations.

Some “robots” have even played the honesty card, half-heartedly admitting their dependence on human intervention. “Today, I am assisted by a human“, declared one of them, while serving a drink to a guest (see below).

Tesla's Optimus robots at the “<" event em>We, Robot » were largely controlled remotely, simulating an autonomy that did not really exist

This demonstration recalls the first presentation of the Optimus project, during which the robot presented was only a human in disguise.

The use of such staging could harm Tesla's credibility, which will have to prove real progress to convince on the Optimus project.

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