The Optimus robots at Tesla’s Cybercab event were humans in disguise
The Optimus robots at Tesla’s Cybercab event were humans in disguise
The robots were just a little too slick.
The robots were just a little too slick.
A robot isn't just software: the hardware for humanoid robots has proved quite difficult to build and if these robots have the hardware necessary to walk around and manipulate objects (in the real world, not in a lab where they get multiple "takes") then they are remarkable even if their every action is directed by a human.
Also I would have guessed that Hasbro owned the IP for robots named "Optimus". Maybe Tesla paid them, the way that Verizon paid Lucasfilm for the right to use the word "droid".
While it is impressive, it's impressive in a "college robotics classes were doing this six years ago" way. The control loop would be interesting with how the human gesticulation interacts with the locomotion algorithm they're using, but that assumes that the robots can walk and chew bubblegum (or in this case, walk and interact with a crowd via teleoperation) at the same time. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the robots were entirely software controlled when walking. That seems like the case from what I'm seeing in these vids.
With how much raw physical power machines display I think people really underestimate how impressive (and thus hard to replicate) biological systems are, the human body runs on about the same amount of total energy as a mid-range laptop. If I tried to build a working humanoid robot with the same power restriction it'd be so underpowered as to be less physically capable than a young child.