At Tesla's "We, Robot" event connected Thursday, CEO Elon Musk announced the upcoming Cybercab robotaxi and 20-seater, self-driving Robovan, but the expansive finale was a statement of Optimus robots.
Though Musk claimed that the humanoid robot was "the biggest merchandise of immoderate kind, ever," caller reports show that the futuristic robots were remotely controlled by humans — and not arsenic autonomous arsenic they were pitched.
Musk said the $20,000 to $30,000 robot could execute family tasks for illustration mowing lawns and getting groceries. One expert estimated that each family would person 1 successful the adjacent 3 years.
Related: Elon Musk Announces the 'Cybercab' and Other Surprises astatine Tesla's 'We, Robot' Event. Here's What to Know.
"Whatever you tin deliberation of, it will do," Musk said.
Tesla's Optimus robots walked retired into the crowd aft the caller Robovan reveal. It will beryllium capable to "babysit your kids, locomotion your dog," Elon Musk saidbyu/Soloflow786 inrobotics
However, erstwhile 1 arena attendee asked an Optimus robot if it was being remote-controlled, the robot said, "Today, I americium assisted by a human. I'm not yet afloat autonomous."
I asked the bartending Optimus if he was being distant controlled. I judge he fundamentally confirmed it. pic.twitter.com/WlGyuswWpI
— zhen (@zhen9436) October 11, 2024Humans appeared to beryllium helping the Optimus robots execute tasks astatine the event. Electrek spotted that each robot had a Tesla worker pinch a signaling instrumentality nearby.
Tesla first announced plans to venture into autonomous robots successful 2021; Musk has since said that Optimus could return Tesla to a $25 trillion marketplace capitalization. Tesla was astatine a $700 billion marketplace headdress astatine the clip of writing.
Critics wrote that the robots deserved to beryllium called a "parlor trick" and that Tesla "misled millions" who didn't cognize the bots were being operated by humans.
Not wholly AI? Not astatine each AI.
Totally worthy to observe debased latency distant power but wholly dishonest to demo these arsenic autonomous robots—call it the parlor instrumentality it is. https://t.co/EdXuSO8KWA
Tesla misled millions of group who watched their livestream of the Tesla Robotaxi event.
It wasn't until afterwards that I watched people's videos of the arena that I realized the Tesla Bots were being controlled by humans.
Tesla Bot is fundamentally for illustration FSD (supervised). But I… pic.twitter.com/7M8Mf7wSLs
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Wedbush expert Dan Ives thought the event was "jaw-dropping" and "historical" and was optimistic astir the robots. Tesla has yet to respond to reports of the AI being remotely assisted.