People cannot wait to see a futuristic machine in their homes doing their chores, which is why a lot are rooting for the development of autonomous humanoid robots. Several have already released demo videos to show what their robots are capable of, and some of them even assure that the robots are actually autonomous.
A Shot at Elon Musk's Deceptive Optimus Demo
Amidst the AI and EV races, many companies are also trying to develop humanoid robots that could one day take over certain tasks and jobs that humans might not want to do, such as risky labor jobs and menial chores at home.
Elon Musk has been in the running since he announced that Tesla is developing a robot called Optimus. The way he presented its progress in the past has been interesting if not funny, especially since one of those demos included a human dressed in a robot costume.
Struggling to catch up with its competitors, Tesla finally released a video of Optimus efficiently performing by folding a shirt. However, viewers caught something at the corner of the video, which appears to be a hand indicating that the robot is being controlled manually, as per Gizmodo.
This is a process called teleoperation, and Chinese robot maker Astribot obviously did not want to be accused of the same deceptive practice, so it added a "No teleoperation" label at the bottom-left corner of the video as the robot demonstrated its capabilities.
Even Figure, which OpenAI's software for many of its functions, assured its audiences that the robot demonstration was all automated, prompted by the speech from someone in the scene. Even though it's not a direct shot at Elon Musk, it's still pretty embarrassing for the tech billionaire.
Even with the resources backing it, Optimus is visibly lagging behind in the robot innovation. Figure's robot, for instance, can recognize speech and use logic with its tasks, while the Astrbot S1 is capable of pulling the cloth from under a stack of wine glasses without breaking them.
Astribot S1 Demo
The video that was recently released by the Chinese company was impressive based on the standard of the robot demos shown so far. For one, it can stack and unstack three cups on both hand sides in just under two seconds.
It is also capable of identifying objects within its sight, as well as knowing where the appropriate storage places are for each object. If that was not impressive enough, the robot appears to know its way around the kitchen too.
The demo showed that Astribot S1 peel a cucumber, flip a pancake, use kitchen tools, season food, open bottle caps, uncork wine bottles and pour them out, vacuum, fold laundry, mist plants, and even throw trash into a bin from about two meters away.
It's safe to say that the China-based company is ahead of the race against other companies that are also developing humanoid robots capable of autonomous operations. Tesla would do well to up their game if it intends to put Optimus bots in homes first.
