Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, posted a 30-second video in which he can be seen folding a shirt at the speed of an octogenarian. The robot is a humanoid.
The robot takes the black shirt out of a washing basket, then spreads it out on the table in front of it and effortlessly folds it. A Forbes story has noted that spectators were given a brief behind-the-scenes look.
The video shows something scooting toward the bottom-right corner of the screen around twice or three times. An engineer appears to be providing the robot with choreographic advice while lingering off-screen.
“Optimus cannot yet do this autonomously, but certainly will be able to do this fully autonomously and in an arbitrary environment (won’t require a fixed table with a box that has only one shirt),” Musk continued (as advice).
The robot’s actions are most likely prearranged and scripted, just like a human.
Rather than showcasing the robot’s capacity for independent thought and learning, this is done to highlight how well its parts such as joints and limbs function together.
A disclaimer from Elon Musk is akin to stating, “The really difficult tasks for the robot to handle will come later.”
Therefore, while what you see now may seem remarkable, Boston Dynamics is well-suited to handle the robot’s genuine intelligence difficulties in the future.
This type of technology dates back to the 1960s and involves a third party commanding a robot’s movements in real-time. Such robotic aid is used by doctors during patient operations.
When Musk initially unveiled Optimus in the summer of 2021, it created quite a stir. During the introduction, however, a guy wearing a robot costume stole the show on stage instead of a sophisticated robot. That provided many members with content.
Musk released a video last month introducing the Optimus Gen 2, an improvement above the Optimus Gen 1. The most recent model weighs 10 kg less than its predecessor and offers a 30% walking speed gain.
