The Tesla Diner Popcorn Stunt
Take last week, for example. Tesla opened a diner in Hollywood where customers were served popcorn by Optimus, the Tesla robot. Videos flooded the internet showing the robot taking an empty bucket from a guest, filling it with popcorn, handing it back with a little thumbs up, and moving to the next person. The comments were full of “We’re living in the future!”
Except… it wasn’t autonomous at all.
Behind the scenes, some guy in a VR headset and motion capture suit was “being” the robot in real time. Tesla never said it was autonomous, but they sure didn’t rush to clarify. It’s the robotics equivalent of claiming your car drives itself when, in reality, there’s someone steering from the back seat with a PlayStation controller.
China’s at it too. You’ve seen the videos: humanoid robots dancing, running, even kicking each other in full on robot fighting tournaments. What you don’t see is the two human operators just out of frame, controlling them like high tech action figures. Again, they’re not explicitly lying. They’re just very comfortable letting you assume the magic is already here.
Why the Illusion Works
The thing is, robots are almost here. The hardware is astonishing. We’ve nailed the body: the joints, the balance, the dexterity, the compact form factor. The problem is the brain.
Software is still playing catch up.
The robot I worked on could go into a kitchen, grab a bottle, pour it into a glass, and bring you that glass, but only if it was that kitchen, that bottle, and that glass. If you swapped the bottle for something taller or a different color, it was game over. Humans don’t have this problem because we understand concepts. A bottle can be glass or plastic, green or clear, heavy or light, and it’s still a bottle. Computers aren’t there yet.
Current AI can describe what it sees fairly well, but it’s still too slow and unreliable to safely live inside a 125 pound hunk of metal moving around your home. And in robotics, unreliable is dangerous.
The Truth: It’s Coming (Just Not Yet)
Don’t get me wrong. The robots are coming. The day when a humanoid bot can walk into your kitchen, grab whatever bottle you own, and pour you a drink without hesitation isn’t science fiction anymore. It’s just not today.
Right now, what you’re seeing online is an elaborate hype campaign designed to keep you believing in the dream long enough for the tech to catch up. And in a way, that’s fine. Robotics needs the hype to get the funding to make the breakthroughs that will actually deliver the future we’re all imagining.
So when you see that next viral video of a robot playing piano, cooking dinner, or serving popcorn at a diner, enjoy it. Just know there’s probably a guy with a headset and a controller standing just out of frame.
The robot butlers are coming. They just need a little more time to learn how to actually be butlers.
