What Robotics Experts Think of Tesla’s Optimus Robot

By Evan Ackerman and Erico Guizzo

Last Friday, 30 September, Tesla introduced several prototypes of its new humanoid robot, Optimus. After a year of speculation based on little more than a person in a robot suit combined with some optimistic assertions made by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, many roboticists tuned in to the event live stream (or attended in person) to see what Tesla’s approach to humanoid robotics would turn out to be.

Reactions across the robotics community were diverse. Because robotics requires expertise in many different aspects of both software and hardware, getting a good sense of the present context of Tesla’s robot as well as its future potential means finding perspectives from a multitude of robotics experts, including people working in industry and academia and everywhere in between. And by scouring the Internet over the weekend, we found as many expert commenters as we could. Together, they offer the most detailed and nuanced understanding of Optimus we’re likely to get outside of Tesla itself.

These robotics experts posted their thoughts on Twitter, LinkedIn, Substack, and elsewhere, and with their permission, we’ve collected them for you below. Many of these folks wrote a lot more than we have room to include, but you can follow the link in a particular expert’s name to see their complete commentary.

Go to IEEE The Institute to read the complete article.