A prototype of the Tesla robotic has lastly arrived and expensive God is it simply as ridiculous as we’d hoped.

If you haven’t been monitoring it, Tesla has been promising to unveil a “humanoid” robotic—a bipedal machine that may transfer, act, and behave like individual. On Friday, Tesla lastly unveiled its lengthy awaited contraption, ushering it onstage at firm headquarters in Palo Alto throughout its annual AI Day. Optimus (you understand, just like the transformer) will sometime assist out on a regular basis Americans with their family chores and might be an reasonably priced product that most individuals should purchase, in accordance with Tesla advert copy.

Is it there but? I feel you understand the reply to that query…The reply is not any. Definitely not. But, you understand, it’s additionally not fairly the overall joke that a few of us could have been anticipating.

Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO/resident mad scientist/bullshit artist, promised Friday that Optimus may really do much more than what was seen through the firm’s presentation—which, admittedly, wasn’t very a lot. “The robot can actually do a lot more than we just showed you,” Musk quipped. “We just didn’t want it to fall on its face.”

Still, what was unveiled was higher than what most of us had been most likely anticipating, given how this entire factor began.

Indeed, when Tesla first introduced plans for Optimus ultimately yr’s AI Day, Musk infamously compelled some unlucky soul to don an unsightly spandex go well with and trot round on a stage to exhibit what the bot would finally appear to be. “The Tesla bot will be real,” he claimed, as folks laughed at him. Since then, Musk has made quite a lot of wild allegations about what this contraption will appear to be and the way it will perform: It will stand 5 ft 8 inches tall! It will completely re-structure the character of labor in society! It will mow your garden for you!

Well, whereas we are able to’t touch upon most of these claims, however what we are able to say is that what was revealed Friday was—on the very least—not a man in a go well with.

The firm really confirmed off two iterations of its creation on Friday evening. The first, was one thing dubbed Bumble C, a robotic that really walked—or, extra precisely, staggered—across the stage and infrequently waved on the viewers. Musk mentioned that this model of the robotic was a “rough development robot” that may finally mature into what Optimus is supposed to be. A video performed through the occasion purported to point out this prototype lifting a field and in addition making an attempt to water a home plant.

The second iteration of the creation to be unveiled was supposedly a extra developed model of the robotic, with extra {hardware} and plating. Ironically, this superior model may probably not stroll in any respect. To the bare eye, it seemed largely like a model with a stick up its butt (the stick was to assist maintain its torso erect, I feel). The factor drunkenly tottered around the stage, guided and supported by a refrain of nervous Tesla employees, who seemed like they had been terrified that it might face plant at any second.

Musk, to his credit score, appeared to be having enjoyable with the entire thing. “As you know, last year it was just a person in a robot suit but, uh, we’ve come a long away and compared to that it’s going to be very impressive,” he mentioned.

The remainder of the night was taken up by shows given by Tesla engineers, who defined a lot of the science behind this new creation.

The presentation clearly evokes quite a lot of questions: For one factor, how lengthy till work on this factor is definitely accomplished? Also, how a lot worse of a robotic is it subsequent to Xiaomi’s CyberOne? We would have reached out to Tesla to ask about some of these things however the firm dissolved its PR workplace two years in the past. I’ve a sense we’ll study extra quickly although. In truth, I’m certain we’ll get some fascinating Elon tweets earlier than lengthy.