Optimus robots wandered around the party held after Elon Musk鈥檚 Tesla unveiled its robotaxi last month, doling out drinks and chatting with guests. They were also being photographed, as android butlers make for great social media content. Partygoers couldn鈥檛 believe their eyes 鈥� and they shouldn鈥檛 have. The robots weren鈥檛 fully autonomous, but remote-controlled avatars.
That shouldn鈥檛 have surprised the tech-savvy revellers. After all, when Musk first unveiled Optimus in 2021, the humanoid robot that strode onto stage was actually a聽costumed dancer. Indeed, throughout the long history of robots, if one impresses with its intelligence, it鈥檚 a safe bet it is an avatar or carefully programmed.
The very first humanoid robots were hulking metal androids聽鈥� and聽used similar tricks to those at聽Musk鈥檚 party. Eric was made in聽1928 by William Richards to deliver a speech at the Exhibition of the Society of Model Engineers. It couldn鈥檛 walk, but could gesticulate and turn its head.
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Most impressively, Eric could converse, and was interviewed by journalists. Richards didn鈥檛 reveal how, but implied the magic was managed via radio: Eric was less a metal ancestor to Alexa and more an overengineered walkie-talkie.
Subsequent robots have gained further skills, notably in the late 1960s, when the research institute now known as SRI International built the remarkable Shakey, which could navigate and make decisions. More recently, Boston Dynamics helped develop robots that walk, and though it prefers four-legged designs, a military contract sparked the creation of the bipedal Atlas, its humanoid robot that climbs, flips and runs in videos, but is only just starting to shift into commercial applications.
Boston Dynamics鈥� robots have embedded intelligence that lets them walk and dodge obstacles without human help, but even they aren鈥檛 fully autonomous. In聽2020, the company posted a video of Atlas dancing to the song Do You Love Me? 鈥� but that took three months of programming.
Autonomous humanoid robots have been built, but remain limited. The best known is perhaps Pepper, developed by Aldebaran after it was acquired by SoftBank. It glides on wheels, its smooth, white, plastic form mimicking the聽curves of a nipped-in waist and聽skirt, a control tablet on the front. Released in 2014, Pepper made headlines, finding work as a receptionist, even reading funeral rites. But it failed to find purpose聽鈥� it couldn鈥檛 empty your dishwasher or use a vacuum cleaner 鈥� so production was halted in 2021.
Start-ups like Figure and Agility continue the work towards a general-purpose humanoid robot, but arguably we don鈥檛 need robots that look like us. Legs may be more聽useful than wheels to move around without replacing every staircase with ramps, but four is easier for balance than two, hence 鈥渄og鈥� style robots like Boston Dynamics鈥� Spot, already in use for聽monitoring and maintenance.
Indeed, there were more than 4聽million s in use globally as of 2023 and millions more robots autonomously vacuum our floors. Yet they aren鈥檛 shaped like us: why automate a聽human to hoover your home when a Roomba is cheaper and needs less space in the cupboard?
One day, we may have the choice: home automation through a network of smart appliances or a single robot butler. But in the meantime, when a humanoid robot struts up for a chat and a drink, by all means be impressed 鈥� but, until proven otherwise, assume it is an avatar or is heavily programmed. When a general-purpose, autonomous, bipedal robot truly does arrive, tech firms won鈥檛 be shy about letting us know. After all, Musk held a press conference to announce Tesla was starting work on robotics. Imagine the theatrics if his firm actually produces a real robot butler.
Nicole Kobie is a journalist and the author聽of
