Top 5 reasons Tesla’s Optimus announcement may turn out be a dud
We recorded 7 claims from this post. 2 were checked against evidence. 5 can’t be checked. 7 more are held. Read the post at its source.
Claims from this post (7)
In the order they appear in the post. Each quotation is the speaker’s words in this post. A label such as “Supported” or “Can’t be checked” is the claim’s current assessment; its page has the evidence and the reasons.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
“The fleets of driverless taxis he promised are likely still years or decades away.”
What we tested: The fleets of Tesla driverless taxis Musk promised are likely still years or decades away as of September 2022.
Assessment: UnresolvedSaid
“Musk is almost never right about deadlines.”
What we tested: Elon Musk's deadlines for technology projects are almost never met.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
“In my view the Google demo is pretty problematic (despite being cool), particularly in terms of likely reliability, but no matter.”
What we tested: In Marcus's view, Google's demo hooking a large language model to a robot, though cool, is pretty problematic, particularly in terms of likely reliability.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
“The most important concern is that robotics is always harder than people think it is.”
What we tested: Robotics is always harder than people think it is.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
“Roboticists are likely to scoff unless they see real evidence of progress than on Friday.”
What we tested: Roboticists are likely to scoff at Tesla's Friday Optimus showing unless they see real evidence of progress.
Assessment: SupportedSaid
“The real problem w robots has never been demos, anyway (there have been many, for decades); it’s making robots in robust in the real world.”
What we tested: The real problem with robots has never been demos, of which there have been many for decades; it is making robots robust in the real world.
What happened: SRI dates Shakey's development to 1966–1972 and describes integrated perception, reasoning, navigation, and task execution. The endpoint records demonstrated robotic capabilities roughly five decades before the post. (SRI International, )
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
“None of this is to say that Tesla could not solve all of these problems eventually given enough time and money, but Friday may not be the big demo his fans are hoping for.”
What we tested: Tesla's Optimus demo on Friday, September 30, 2022 may not be the big demo Musk's fans are hoping for.
Held from this post (7)
These records did not pass every check, so nothing about them is published. Held is not a finding.
- The record does not meet the current rules. Our reading, not assessed: Tesla's driverless car project, promised nearly yearly since 2014, is still in beta and is not really a driverless car, as it requires constant driver attention.
- The two reviews read the claim differently
- The record does not meet the current rules. Our reading, not assessed: If Tesla's Optimus demo shows only a dancing robot, the robotics community would rightly be skeptical about Tesla being close to a general-purpose domestic robot.
- The two reviews read the claim differently
- The criteria are ambiguous. Our reading, not assessed: OpenAI apparently shut down its Rubik's cube robotics effort in 2021 without ever shipping anything resembling a product.
- The two reviews reached different assessments. Our reading, not assessed: If Tesla does something similar to Google's demo of hooking a large language model up to a robot, nobody knowledgeable will be impressed.
- Attribution is uncertain