Checking in on Tesla's Optimus Robot

Checking in on Tesla's Optimus Robot - Managing Expectations

Last year Elon Musk announced at the first Tesla AI day the Tesla Bot, which has since been renamed the Tesla Optimus, that is basically a general purpose humanoid robot assistant with human like appearance and proportions. Elon expected they would have a working prototype by the end of 2022.

While very little has been released about the project since, in June Elon took to Twitter to announce that they would delay this year's Tesla AI day until September 30 in anticipation of having a working prototype of the robot by that time.

Elon Musk announces the Tesla Bot at the 2021 Tesla AI day.

When I initially wrote about the Tesla Bot I noted that both Boston Dynamics and Disney Imagineering are developing robot technologies that demonstrate a streamlined, humanoid robot like Optimus is certainly possible.

However with precious few details, and the occasional appearance of static, concept manikins of Tesla Optimus bots at places like the Cyber Rodeo Gigafactory Austin, Texas (see video below), one can only speculate what to expect on September 30th.

With not really much to report I thought I'd see what an AI could cobble together in the way of a blog post about Tesla Optimus.

Jasper A.I. is a web application that is being used to generate all kinds of written content right now, including blog posts.

Just enter a title, a brief description of what the article should be about, a style, and some keywords, and Jasper can put together an article in seconds. Below is (word for word with no edits by me) what it came up with when I entered the same title as this blog post and described my article as; Writing an update on any recent information about the Tesla Optimus Robot in a semi serious style.

Bonus AI generated images by CrAIyon.
Tesla's Optimus Robot has been the talk of the tech world ever since it was first announced. And with good reason - the potential for this bot to revolutionize home automation is huge.
However, Tesla has been pretty quiet on the Optimus front lately. Some early adopters were disappointed when Tesla failed to deliver on its promise to release the bot in late 2019.
Tesla has since said that the Optimus is still in development and that they are taking their time to make sure it is perfect before release. This is understandable, but it does mean that we are still in limbo as far as an official release date goes.
In the meantime, there have been some interesting rumors and bits of news about the Tesla Optimus Robot. Here's a rundown of the latest:
The Tesla Optimus is rumored to be able to do some pretty amazing things. One of these is its ability to track objects and people around your home. This would be a huge help if you want to keep an eye on your kids or pets while you're away.
Another rumor is that the Tesla Optimus will be able to self-charge. This would be a huge advantage over other robots on the market, as you wouldn't have to worry about plugging it in or running out of power.
The Tesla Optimus is also rumored to be waterproof. This would be an incredible feat, as most robots are not able to withstand even a little bit of water.
At this point, however, these are just rumors. Tesla has not released any official information about the Tesla Optimus. As such, it's important to manage your expectations. Tesla may or may not release a robot that can do all of these things. But if they do, it will surely be a game-changer.

As far as articles goes it's certainly passable to the casual reader, and I would've saved at least a couple of hours writing this if I only published Jasper's effort.

The trouble is, I don't know if any of it is true? At least one fact is completely wrong... i.e. the Tesla Bot wasn't even a thing in 2019 so how could Tesla fail to deliver on any promises if they haven't even made them yet, and who are those early adopters? Chances are Jasper maybe got confused with Tesla vehicles on this info.

I'm not entirely sure where all the rumors come from either but they do sound plausible. One assumes Jasper simply trawled the internet for these things so maybe they do relate to the Tesla Bot?

Aside from that, it's not a bad effort. I could probably have edited in some real rumors and facts from known sources and still saved myself more than an hour writing.

Anyway, there's not really anything new to report on Tesla Optimus. I guess we'll just have to wait until September 30, AI day. In the meantime, it may be wise to manage expectations. We will only be seeing a prototype after all.

It's likely the first prototype Tesla Optimus won't
deliver on what was promised.

Comments

Review: ArtHelper - The All-In-One AI Writing + Marketing Assistant for Artists - 'ChatGPT for Artists'

ArtHelper prides itself on being all 'human-made' art. T he idea of an AI, trained specifically on art business marketing, that can not only offer advice on marketing your work, but also assist with creating all the content too, is certainly appealing. Especially to those of us who would rather spend more time creating our art than trying to sell it. ArtHelper does just that whilst attempting to be your 'home' on the internet. A destination for your profile and portfolio, a marketplace for your art, and a directory of artists as well, with one distinction - all the art must be human made. Which, for you AI artists, doesn't count the prompt for AI generated art - because the idea, according to ArtHelper's creators, isn't the art. Which is a fair point, in terms of promoting art 'made by a human', but can get kind of murky when you understand that not all AI art is generated from a single prompt... and 'found object art' isn't actually ...

What a Future with Flying Cars Might Look Like

Jetsons Style Flying Car - Image by TET & Leonardo.ai Regular readers of this blog will know that flying cars have been a recurring subject over the years. I even collected all my posts into a book you can buy on Amazon Kindle called Where's My Flying Car? The development of a true flying car is a fanciful one, largely because we've yet to come up with anything that actually looks like a car that flies. Most serious projects that even make it to a prototype are either small planes that compact into something you might drive from your home to an airport (if they don't have any vertical landing and take off (VTOL) capability) but you wouldn't drive to you local supermarket for the weekly groceries run, or they're some kind of drone/helicopter configuration with so many propellers you'll worry about shredding pedestrians who get too close. The dream is something that looks exactly like a car but can drive on a road, or hover (kind of like Luke Skywalker's ...

New Cat Art Collaboration: TET's Cats Paintings and OpenArt AI Model Workspace (Photobooth)

TET's Cats AI generated art trained on my own art style. Way back in the early 2000's I started painting stylized cat artworks to illustrate some cat themed poems I'd written, that I exhibited and sold online in an exhibition titled 'Sleeping Cats' in 2004. You can see all these early works in my Flickr Album . Many are also available to buy as prints in my RedBubble Store . Leading on from that I began selling my paintings on ebay where the cat themed works were almost guaranteed to sell over any other subject I painted. As a result I became some what known for my cat art to the point where people would commission me to create images of their own pet cats in my cartoony style. Flash forward a decade (almost two at this point) and I haven't painted any cat themed art in years. To be honest I haven't done any traditional painting at all in years. In the last couple of years AI image generators have really caught my attention. Specifically that they are able t...

Is AI Art 'Art'? The Say NO to AI Art Movement, and Why Human Artists Will Adapt

AI Art No T-Shirt by TET Also available on other items . Right now there is a big debate over not just whether AI art is 'art' but whether AI's are actually ripping off the work of actual human artists, without their consent, to create their images - particularly images 'in the style of' specific artists. From my own observations this debate started to get more traction when artist's signatures began appearing in the output of AI Art image generators. Is It Art? Cool Froyd the Cat Sketch by TET. My style is very much influenced by classic Disney and WB character styles. To get some clarity on how real human artists work (of which I am one)... we, that is all of us... take influences from the art that has come before. i.e. whatever artists we like, have studied, seen etc. we are influenced by. It shows up in our work, intentionally or not. If you really study my own cartoony art style you'll see I'm heavily influenced by early Disney and Warner Bros cart...

Tesla Unveils Optimus Robot Prototype and Second Generation Prototype - Movie, iRobot, May Be a Documentary?

Tesla Optimus Prototype One, Development Platform. September 30th finally rolled around along with Tesla A.I. day and the unveiling of not one but two Tesla Optimus Robot prototypes. Which was quite a bonus since we hadn't heard anything much about these robots when I wrote about them in July of 2022. Before revealing the first prototype, Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, made a point of managing everyone's expectations, just in case anyone was thinking they were about to see anything close to the actual human concept 'robot' we saw last year. I honestly don't think anyone was expecting that. Prototype One - Development Platform The prototype that walked out on stage, for the very first time without ever being tethered to anything (apparently), was still incredibly impressive despite not being streamlined and highly refined in its capability. It walked quite well - eerily similar to the first generation robots in the 2004, Will Smith movie, iRobot , and even did a bit of a dan...

TV Series Review: Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord (2026 Disney+) No Spoilers

D ave Filoni continues to mine his one idea for Star Wars animation with his latest ten part series, Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord . Not that I have a big problem with that. At this point I'm hooked on all his Star Wars animated shows, but I do wish he would try something different with the basic story structure every now and then. However, young, inexperienced apprentice, either already teamed, or looking to be teamed with a Jedi Master (or in this case, reluctantly with a former Sith Lord) is a main character combination that just keeps giving in the Filoni-verse. The difference between shows is in the detail. Maul - Shadow Lord focuses on the Star Wars Underworld, local law enforcement, and the aforementioned Jedi Apprentice. As well it includes Star Wars lore that is usually less prominent in the animated shows, specifically the dominance of the Empire and how it changes a society once its ideology is imposed. If you've only ever watched the feature films you'll likel...

Mount Lofty Botanic Garden & Stirling Hotel, Adelaide Hills, South Australia

My partner, Enigma and I stayed overnight one weekend at an Airbnb in the Adelaide Hills to attend a wedding and needed something to do the following day to make our stay more of a weekend away. Enigma suggested a visit to the Mount Lofty Botanic Garden followed by lunch at the Stirling Hotel. If you're curious about our Airbnb stay it was in a self contained guest house known as Borow in the township of Uraidla. Definitely a very pleasant stay, but more functional than a relaxing getaway in itself. Best suited to someone touring the Hills region and just in need of somewhere comfortable to wind down at the end of the day that's more roomy and homelike than a hotel room. Mount Lofty Botanic Garden I've visited the Mount Lofty Summit several times over my last 23 years in SA, most recently as part of a guided bus tour , and I've never heard of the Mount Lofty Botanic Garden . Enigma and I were expecting something along the lines of the Adelaide Botanic Garden which i...

TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Search This Blog