Is Musk a fraud? Tesla robots were remotely controlled by humans

During a recent event where Tesla unveiled its robot taxi and van, one of the biggest draws was the humanoid Optimus robots, serving drinks and chatting with attendees. At the same time, Elon Musk sees the bright future of Tesla in them. However, their abilities are still nowhere near as advanced as he presented. As it quickly surfaced, Tesla added a lot of color to the fact.

Tesla bot needs help from people

According to the agency Bloombergwhich she quoted unnamed sources familiar with the situation said Tesla used human operators to control some of its humanoid robots’ functions during the event. This statement supported technology blogger Robert Scoble, to whom a Tesla engineer confirmed that the robot’s gait was controlled by artificial intelligence. In contrast, other activities, such as pouring drinks, playing rock-paper-scissors, or communicating with event participants, were controlled by humans.

There are some obvious clues that support the claim that the robots were not fully autonomous, such as different voices or overly perfect responses accompanied by gestures. At the same time, it seems that Tesla didn’t even try too hard to pretend that the Optimus robots are completely autonomous.

Tesla Optimus robots were partially controlled by humans during the Tesla event | photo: Robert Scoble via X

The robot confessed

In one video, the robot jokingly replied to Scoble that when asked how much it was controlled by the AI, it would answer “maybe a little”. Another bot admitted that “a person is assisting him today” and added that he was not fully autonomous, having trouble saying a word “autonomous”.

Musk did not exaggerate for the first time

If we wanted to get a real picture of how far Tesla has advanced in the development of humanoid robots, then this recent action she really wasn’t the right one. Their presence was more of an over-the-top show than a real presentation.

After all, we can remember the AI ​​Day 2021 event, when Elon Musk presented his idea of ​​a humanoid robot for the first time. At the time, the company only had a static model available, so Musk brought what was clearly a human in a robotic suit to the stage. While Optimus is far from perfect, he has come a long way in comparison.