Elon Musk became the butt of more than a few jokes after netizens pointed out that Tesla’s robot demo wasn’t all it seemed. As it turns out, a video posted by the billionaire of Optimus, the company’s much-touted humanoid robot, was actually controlled by a human something off screen. And it’s interesting to see that robot manufacturers are now assuring in their videos that they are not using the same fraudulent magic trick as Musk.
First, a quick lesson in recent history in case you aren’t familiar with the history. Musk recently hyped Optimus and promised that Tesla would eventually deliver an amazing new robot that people would buy in stores. He first announced his robot in the summer of 2021, but it was literally just someone dressed in a robot costume.
Musk often posts videos of Optimus, but they were disappointing to say the least. Finally, in January, Musk released a video of Optimus fold a shirt, Sharp-eyed viewers noticed a hand that kept sliding into the frame, clearly showing that someone was actually operating the robot.
The technology here is called “teleoperation” and has been used in robotics since the 1940s. Essentially, someone moves their own hand and the robot mimics the movement. That’s cool for mid-20th century technology, but it’s not the kind of autonomous robotic movement that people here in the 21st century expect from innovative and futuristic products.
And all of this brings us to an interesting phenomenon we’re seeing after Musk disgraced himself for his robot fake. When releasing new demo videos, robot companies are now adding notes that make it clear that the machine is operating autonomously.
One example is a new video from Chinese robot manufacturer Astribot. The company released a new video this week, available at YoutubeIt shows the Astribot S1 performing a range of tasks, including everything from pouring a glass of wine to ironing a shirt. The robot can even pull a tablecloth out from under a stack of wine glasses, a trick we all half-expect fail spectacularly.
The Astribot S1 even folds a shirt in the new video, just like Optimus, but you’ll notice something really interesting in the bottom left corner. Those words “no teleoperation” probably wouldn’t have been necessary before Musk tried to find a quick fix in January. But now, as you can see below, it’s a way for robotics companies to reassure viewers that their robot is actually doing something autonomously, without an invisible human hand controlling the process.
And it’s not just Astribot. The robot company Figure, which uses OpenAI Software for its vision software recently made it clear that it does not use teleoperation or teleop in a very impressive demo released in March.
Figure co-founder Brett Adcock explained Video for X“The video shows end-to-end neural networks. There is no teleop. Additionally, this was filmed at 1.0x speed and shot continuously.”
Canadian robotics company Sanctuary AI has released one new video in April This included an explanation that the robot was “autonomous” and reassured viewers that there was no strange teleoperating puppetry at work.
Musk still has a long way to go to catch up with the most innovative robotics companies like Boston Dynamics, which recently retired the hydraulic version of its Atlas robot to make time for one electric version. But at least he helped provide a public service by increasing transparency in the robotics field.
Nobody wants to get caught faking a demo. This is the kind of thing that makes people less likely to trust you in the future. When Musk released a dancing human in a robot suit, at least everyone knew it was fake.