Tesla (TSLA) shared the development progress of its humanoid robot Optimus on Sunday. In a short video, Tesla showcased how the bot has gained new capabilities based on its machine learning AI.
Interestingly, the Tesla Bot can now perform yoga poses and can even say Namaste with its hand gestures. We remember that at AI Day 2022, Tesla engineers had to carry the Optimus bot to the stage as it could not walk on its own. Tesla performed all of the demonstrations with the Bumble C prototype at the event.
Tesa Optimus robot with its AI learning with the help of its robust Tesla Vision neural net is now capable of identifying physical objects more precisely. “Optimus can now sort objects autonomously 🤖. Its neural network is trained fully end-to-end: video in, controls out,” says Tesla.
In less than a year, the Optimus engineering team at Tesla enabled it to perform complex hand and body gestures. This is the result of the advancement Tesla has achieved in both the hardware and software side of Optimus.
Interestingly, Tesla Optimus identifies even its own body using the Tesla Vision neural net. “Using only vision and joint position encoders, it can precisely locate its limbs in space,” Tesla states as Optimus attempts to identify its arms and hands through its vision.
Tesla also shows its humanoid robot sorting building blocks according to their colors. Optimus puts the blue blocks in the blue tray while it puts the green ones in the green tray despite the shades of both green objects being a bit different.
Tesla robot performs this task or any other task independently using its vision without a line of code pre-programmed into its brain just like Tesla Full Self-Driving (FSD). Optimus however uses the same neural net that provides vision to Tesla cars for FSD.
Tesla, later on, shows Optimus stretching as if it was tired after a long day’s work. In this gesture, Tesla accidentally or purposefully revealed the Optimus’ power on/off switch which is located on the back of its neck (the red button we can see in the screenshot below).
However, Elon Musk confirmed in a post on X that Tesla aims to make Optimus safer by offering multiple methods to pause or turn off the humanoid robot. These methods include a remote control and the owner’s phone.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk further said that users switching off Optimus using a remote, phone, or the switch will be the ultimate decision for the system. There will be no overrides from the Tesla mothership on this decision.
Musk has previously said that the Tesla robot has virtually unlimited potential in terms of sales. The company will have its majority of sales coming from Optimus or next-gen robots compared to its cars in the future.
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