Elon Musk’s Tesla Optimus humanoid robot folds a t-shirt on a research facility table. The robot seems capable of this duty; however, Musk offered some follow-up information seconds after sharing the video, dampening excitement for the robot’s domestic performance.
I can fold clothes quicker. The aim is autonomy, yet Optimus wasn’t functioning independently. Instead, the robot acts like a very costly marionette or a contemporary replica of the original automotons, going through specified movements to do its duty. Musk stated it would “certainly be able to do this fully autonomously,” but without the extremely artificial limitations of this demo, such as the set height table and one item of clothing in the properly arranged basket.
Tesla’s recent highlight reels show off a lot of technical wizardry, but these are likely scripted and pre-programmed activities that highlight the bot’s joints, servos, and limbs rather than its artificial intelligence. After thinking about it, Elon’s disclaimer means “all the very hard things will happen later.” 
It’s hard to create a humanoid machine that can control delicate things like clothes like a person. That’s some amazing animatronics work. But suggesting that Optimus will be a fully-functional domestic servant with all the capabilities of a human domestic worker it might replace is like showing a video of a wooden marionette and saying, ‘of course, this will be a real boy soon.’
Musk is known for predicting things will happen in incomprehensible time frames, but his prediction of ‘within three to five years’ at the bot prototype’s original unveiling last year (not counting the year before when it was just a guy in a suit) is laughable given its current state and robotics’ current state.
