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Robots talk to guests at a Tesla event. A video of this goes viral on TikTok. “Very dangerous,” says one user. Experts explain what’s behind it.
“I think we’ve all seen this movie…” writes Danny Wayne TikTok-Video. Anyone who watches the video will know after a few seconds which film they are referring to. In “I, Robot” with Will Smith, humanoid robots are an integral part of society in 2035. When the film came out in 2004, it was science fiction. In 2024 we will apparently have arrived at this vision of the future.
Announced on October 10th Tesla-Chef Elon Musk entry into the robotaxi business with a big show. At the presentation on the premises of the Hollywood studio Warner Bros. in Los Angeles, he also demonstrated the current version of the humanoid robot “Optimus”. The robot will be “the greatest product of all time,” said Musk. Every person will have at least one as a mechanical helper.
‘Very Dangerous’: TikTok Users Concerned After Seeing Video of Tesla’s Robots
After introducing the taxi, called “Cybercab,” the robots acted as bartenders, talking and joking with guests. The TikTok video showing these scenes has been seen by over 33 million people (as of October 15). Many of them expressed concern in the comments.
An autonomous and intelligent robot that can talk? “The end of humanity,” commented one TikTok user. Another person wrote: “The fact that Elon has some power over these robots scares me.” Many find it “very dangerous” and write that they are “scared”. It seemed like Tesla was quietly making gigantic advances in robotics and AI. At the event, Optimus demonstrated capabilities that no robot has ever been able to achieve before. So has Elon Musk achieved a technological revolution?
Optimus robots at Tesla event were controlled by humans
A few days after the event in Hollywood, the financial service, among others, reported Bloombergthat some of the robots were remotely controlled by people and that Tesla apparently duped the audience. A participant at the event, Robert Scoble, posted on X (formerly Twitter) shared a video of a robot bartender and wrote, “This isn’t fully AI. A person supports him from a distance”.
Adam Jonas, an analyst at Morgan Stanley, also wrote in a report that robots “relied on teleoperation (human intervention).” The robots’ different voices and hand gestures and responses, which were immediate and synchronous, would make it obvious, several media outlets reported.
The robots at the Tesla event were controlled by humans. © dpa/XinHua/Fang Zhe/Montage/BuzzFeed News
Robotics expert names time when humanoid robots will “become standard”
“Current AI systems cannot respond to questions so dynamically and quickly,” says Marc Dassler BuzzFeed News Deutschland von IPPEN.MEDIA. He is the CEO and co-founder of an AI software platform and leads a team of roboticists there. However, this will resolve itself in the next twelve to 24 months. “Then it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish people from machines,” he says.
Humanoid robots, i.e. robots with human-like shapes, “will become the standard by the end of the decade,” says Dassler. They are just the “natural continuation” of our washing machines, dishwashers or vacuum cleaner robots.
Elon Musk wants to use robot Optimus at Tesla in 2025
Sandra Loß dealt with robots like those from Tesla as part of a seminar at Aalen University. “Autonomous and intelligent robot systems use AI-supported camera systems and sensors and can therefore make decisions themselves,” she explains BuzzFeed News Deutschland. Nevertheless, it must be noted that the sensors of robots can still be disturbed by external influences, for example loud and different ambient noises or changing lighting conditions and reflections.
The goal of humanoid robots is to act freely in the human environment. “They can take on monotonous, dangerous or unpleasant tasks,” says Loß. “Social robots move close to people, so security and privacy become very important. Information from sensors, cameras and microphones must not be passed on to unauthorized third parties.”
The humanoid robot Optimus will be used “for internal use” at Tesla next year “and hopefully in large numbers for other companies in 2026,” writes Elon Musk on Twitter. A press query from BuzzFeed News Deutschland Tesla left it unanswered until publication (October 15).
