Elon Musk was shower with extolment on social media during his big robotaxi unveiling on Thursday , even if the Tesla CEO ’s Cybercab is still just a prototype that maynever get released . But it was Musk ’s humanoid robots that arguably received the most tending in video station during the event , as Optimus bots were seen dance , speak with node , play paper - rock - scissors hold , and evenpouring drinks .
There ’s just one problem : The robots were n’t operating as autonomously as most hoi polloi had ab initio assume . The Optimus robots were under the control of unobserved humans , accord to one someone who speak with a Tesla engineerat the event , but Musk did n’t say people that directly .
“ This is not wholly AI . A human is distant assisting , ” technical school evangelist Robert Scoble nip , alongwith a videofrom the upshot at Warner Bros. studios in Burbank on Thursday night .
The robot floor cleaner of the future, photographed for the 10 December 2024 issue of Look magazine, which was actually controlled remotely by a man in the next room.Photo: Bob Lerner for Look magazine / Library of Congress collection
Optimus make me a boozing , please .
This is not whole AI . A human being is distant assisting .
Which mean AI solar day next class where we will see how fast Optimus is learning.pic.twitter.com/CE2bEA2uQD
— Robert Scoble ( @Scobleizer)October 11 , 2024
Scoble was still clearly impressed with the robots . But it gave the entire spectacle a very different vibration when you know there are humans off in a elbow room somewhere doing at least some of the study . We ’ve had tele - surgery of robots ( sometimes prognosticate a Waldo ) sinceat least the forties , though admittedly in a more primitive form . Walt Disney used teleoperation to achieve life history - alike robotics in the 1960s for his attractions at the World ’s Fair and Disneyland .
The big difference of opinion between Musk and Disney is that Disney was n’t trying to use tele - ops to trick anyone . The total purpose was to make a show , not unlike Musk ’s destination Thursday night . The billionaire did stage everything at a movie studio apartment , after all . But by not disclosing up front that his robot were have human aid , more than a few people on social media said they felt deceived .
Musk is far from the first person to use smoke and mirrors to make robots look like they ’re capable of astonishing feats while in reality being less than lucid about how the technology work . The Tesla CEO ’s constant hype of products that do n’t actually exist yet ( remember the Optimus unveiling in 2021 that was just a human in a robot case ? ) reminds me of RCA - Whirlpool ’s so - calledMiracle Kitchenfrom the tardy 1950s . Especially because the kitchen display had a robot that was actually being remote check by a man in the next room , despite telling viewers it was work by itself .
The Miracle Kitchen was the crown jewel of the 1959 fair in Russia carry during a very abbreviated attempt at friendlier relations between the U.S. and Soviet Union during the Cold War . It was a kind of ethnical rally , with the Soviets set on a tech bonnie in New York while the Americans put on a show in Moscow . You may even call up get a line about the “ kitchen disputation ” between then - Vice President Richard Nixon and Soviet loss leader Nikita Khrushchev . Yep , that was the kitchen .
The American National Exhibition had everything from a manner show to flick about sprightliness in the U.S. But it was the kitchen that really strike people , as it ostensibly show off advanced technologies , include a central computer with push - clit controls and an autonomous robot that looked like a proto - Roomba . But the Americans only order it was autonomous .
Someone has uploaded a 13 - minute promotional motion picture for the kitchen toYouTube , but a one - bit time aboutthe vacuumis below to give you an idea of what the Russians see back in 1959 .
“ What you see come out of the wall is a self - propel level dry cleaner . It ’s whole ego - contained and it can be directed to any part of the kitchen , ” the film ’s host says .
“ This story cleaner is operated by a self - charging battery . It curb itself by sensing an electric path in the floor , ” the host continues . “ As it passes over the floor , it vacuums up at large particles . And if the floor needs washing , the story cleanser will wash out it with a rotary brush scrubbing military action . It will follow up washing with a exhaustive rinsing . ”
This unbelievable automaton void was n’t just going to get all the floor - cleansing done , it was going to do it without being tell to return for charging .
“ And when the entire job is done , the floor cleaner issue to its locating beneath the cabinet where it empties the waste and is mechanically recharged to be quick for the next operation , ” the innkeeper take .
In realness , the automaton was n’t figure out severally at all . Back in 2015 , I speak with a man name Joe Maxwell , then in his 80s , who helped design the kitchen back in the 1950s . Maxwell was working for the design house Sundberg - Ferar in Detroit and gave me some behind - the - scenes info about the kitchen that had never been write about before .
“ They had a two - way mirror with a individual sitting behind it that could see the way , ” Maxwell told meover the telephone . “ And they wireless - controlled the vacuum cleaner and the dishwasher . ”
“ They said it was sniffing a conducting wire in the storey , which it could have been , ” Maxwell told me . “ But it was easier just to have a person behind this mirror that could make all the things happen — from start the threshold and glower the ledge and all of those different thing . ”
take someone just secretly sitting in the next room was much easier and less expensive than using advanced detector .
“ It was easy to do that than to put in all of those sensors all over the office , and do what the push - button read to do . It was simpler just to have a person operating that stuff remotely , ” say Maxwell . “ That was for expedience more than it was for lack of technology . ”
Maxwell then pause to clarify . “ But there was a lack of technology . We did not have anything near what we have today . We had computers , but they were large box . ”
you’re able to see why Musk ’s robot demonstration yesterday reminded me of this technical school fair from the late 1950s . The goal of the Americans was to convince Soviets that U.S.-style capitalist economy was the superior system , delivering amazing consumer products that even included computing equipment and advanced robotics . But it was all a show for propaganda role , assist by the CIA and the Rand Corporation along with prominent line of work .
Some investors called Thursday ’s Tesla result “ underwhelming ” given its deficiency of particular and preposterously farseeing metre - inning for speech of the Cybercab and Optimus robot . But Musk often does this schtick of hyping up tech that does n’t be yet . Then when people eventually come back to Earth and clear he has n’t delivered anything telling he finds another vivid shining object to shake in front of Wall Street .
Remember the hyper - fast Loop that Musk was go to bring to metropolis likeChicagoand Las Vegas ? It was supposed to sport autonomous 16 - passenger vehicles gliding along at150 mile per hour . The billionaire eventually deliver veritable Teslas maneuver by human drivers going35 miles per hourin a tunnel under Las Vegas .
At least we can say Musk ’s robots aren’tshouting spot . Well , not yet .
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