Optimus Robots, Self Driving Cars and Buses - Tesla's 'We Robot' Event and the Evolution of Optimus

Tesla Optimus Robot Serving Guests.
Image: Tesla

On the tenth of October Tesla held their 'We Robot' event, which I guess is the new incarnation of their previous Tesla AI Day annual event. There were three much talked about reveals, the driverless taxis, a driverless bus, and Optimus robots moving around the event, fully interacting with people 'on the ground'.

Tesla Driverless Taxi.
Image: Tesla

While it was cool to see so many driverless taxis, that you could get in and experience for yourself as they drove around the Warner Brothers lot, and the driverless bus was something of a surprise reveal nobody expected, my attention was on Optimus.

Tesla Driverless Robovan.
Image: Tesla

It was in September of 2021 that Elon Musk first announced his plan to create an affordable, humanoid, domestic robot, that would eventually be in homes worldwide. That vision was underlined with a person wearing a robot suit, that wasn't as well received as Elon may have liked, despite being a good visual of what the development team would be striving for.

Tesla Optimus, First Generation Concept to Gen 1.

A year later and Elon unveiled two humanoid prototypes. One a kind of 'proof' of concept made with off the shelf parts, the other a more streamlined model with custom Tesla designed parts. Neither model was particularly impressive, even for 2022, but it was clear progress had been made, and the second prototype kind of had some resemblance to the initial 'dancing man' vision.

December of 2023 Tesla announced the Optimus Gen II, a humanoid robot that looked very much closer to the dancing man vision of 2021.

While many were impressed by the Optimus robots interacting with the crowd at the WE Robot event, it has been confirmed that all these robots were actually operated by humans remotely and weren't using AI at all in their interactions.

Which for some, it seems, was disappointing but, from my point of view, was not entirely unexpected when recent behind the scenes footage on the Optimus project literally shows the robots being trained by human operators through remote operation.

Regardless I was still impressed by how far Optimus has come, and more importantly, how its development has pushed competition in the humanoid robotics space.

For example, 1X Technologies, a robotics company based in Norway and San Francisco, is focused on creating humanoid robots for your home, and plans to build 100,000 of its Neo Humanoid robots for the home by 2027. Which is not dissimilar to Tesla's timeline for getting Optimus into homes.

Prior to Optimus almost no one was taking the idea of humanoid robots in the home as a viable business model.

Personally I doubt I'll have have a full humanoid robot assistant in my home unless they come up with some kind of affordable leasing arrangement, the way they did for mobile phones. But I still like the idea of it.

Although I will be a little disappointed if the future is AI being built into all our appliances. I don't really want to have conversations with my dish washer, fridge, or drier about anything.

In the meantime I'll keep an eye on Tesla, and Optimus specifically. I honestly don't care if Elon doesn't actually meet his own deadlines when it comes to his projects. All that matters is that he continues to make progress.

Optimus Navigating Around

Comments

1X's NEO, The Home Robot, Fails to Impress But It is Progress For Home Humanoid Robot Assistants

1X's NEO, The Home Robot, Tends some Plants. Image: 1X website . J ust over a year ago I wrote about new robotics start up, 1X and their Plans to Build 100,000 Humanoids by 2027 in the form of their NEO Home Robot household assistant. About a year later and NEO has undergone a bit of a makeover, and you can pre-order your own NEO in one of three stylish colours, for delivery some time in 2026. At USD$20,000.00 the price is a bit of buzz kill but 1X does offer a $499 monthly subscription plan as an alternative. Unfortunately the launch hasn't been the show stopper 1X might have hoped for because NEO isn't a fully realised, autonomous robot just yet. While it can learn to do tasks around your home autonomously, there's a bit of a learning curve between when you first receive it, and when it actually becomes useful in a meaningful way. Which was not helped by a video released on The Wall Street Journal's YouTube channel, I Tried the First Humanoid Home Robot. It Go...

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...

How to Transfer Any Line Art to Your Griptape - Easy Skateboard Griptape Art Tutorial

Dog Star Griptape Art by TET Griptape art is once again gaining popularity amongst modern skateboarders. For those of us who have tried to create our own griptape art, using paint pens, you'll know reproducing your design onto the grip, without making any mistakes is incredibly challenging. Mostly because you just have to go for it and draw the design freehand, with paint pens, directly onto the griptape. You can make the odd mistake here or there but if you get the proportions of the design completely wrong, it can be very difficult to fix. Often you just have to live with the mistake. To address the problem I've come up with an easy way anyone can transfer a line art design to their griptape, removing almost all the anxiety of getting the proportions wrong. In fact, you could do this with any line art design, even if you have no drawing skill at all. Watch the video below to see my technique in action and/or skip past the video where I highlight the basic steps to get your de...

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 vi...

New Software Blues - Forgetting What You've Learnt

Serif DrawPlus X5 Image: Serif Website . There was a time when I could skim through a manual for virtually any application software in the space of a weekend and that would be all I'd need to find my way around the program from then on. There was even a time when I could work out applications based on my previous experience of using similar software. Whilst those days aren't completely gone I'm finding it harder and harder to learn new software simply because the software can do so much more than it used to. For example, I got very used to using Corel Draw 8 and the suite of tools that came with it back in 1995. I learnt to use it over the space of a weekend so I could complete a large commission I was working on for a client. I'm from the school of if it does the job then don't upgrade . Corel Draw 8 has done the job I need it for well for nearly 15 years. Plus I don't like spending money unnecessarily on upgrades - I just don't buy into the wh...

The Worst Book I Have Ever Read - Gulp: Travels Around the Gut by Mary Roach

TET and Mary Roach's Book, Gulp . I 'm the kind of person who only reads one physical book at a time. For context I consider a 'book' to be anything over 100 pages of mostly text. Basically your typical work of fiction novel or factual biography. It's not that I can't read more than one book at a time, I just choose not to because I don't set a lot of time aside for reading. Maybe 30 minutes a day when I'm on a good run with a really engaging text. Little did I know that Mary Roach's Gulp: Travels Around the Gut *, a book of 317 pages (minus the Acknowledgments and Bibliography) would become a bottle neck for my reading for the next three and a half years. As such, I'm calling it the worst book I have ever read. Despite how long it took me to read, it is not a bad book in the slightest, and is in fact, quite light, somewhat entertaining, reading for a book that explores the science, and the resilience of the human digestive system. I'm no st...

Momentary pauses in cyberspace... Why Leave a Comment If You Have No Intention of Coming Back?

Different Stands Out Mug by TET. View on RedBubble . I got to thinking about blogs and the fact that anyone can leave a comment to my posts. When someone comments, the polite thing to do is to respond with a comment under theirs. This may prompt an additional comment but really that person has no real intention of in depth discussion. They're just passing through. It's a lot like walking down the street with a complete stranger approaching from the opposite direction. Your intention is to simply pass them by but as you come within talking distance the stranger says "Hi, nice day isn't it?" Like they needed to share that little highlight of information to brighten your day too. You can smile and nod in agreement, or go so far as to say "Yes isn't it," whilst passing by without so much as a break in stride. It's all that is required to be polite. Sometimes though, you want a bit more from your stranger. Why did they decide to say 'Hi'...

TET.Life (The Extraordinary Tourist Life)

Search This Blog