Top 5 reasons Tesla’s Optimus announcement may turn out be a dud
We recorded 6 claims from this post. 1 was checked against evidence. 5 can’t be checked. 5 more are held. Read the post at its source.
Claims from this post (6)
In the order they appear in the post. Each quotation is the speaker’s words in this post. A label such as “Supported” or “Can’t be checked” is the claim’s current assessment; its page has the evidence and the reasons.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Forecast
“The fleets of driverless taxis he promised are likely still years or decades away.”
Our reading: The fleets of Tesla driverless taxis Musk promised are likely still years or decades away as of September 2022.
No horizon
Assessment: UnresolvedSaid
Observation
“Musk is almost never right about deadlines.”
Our reading: Elon Musk's deadlines for technology projects are almost never met.
No horizon Evidence as of
Limitation: The usable evidence is concentrated on Tesla.
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Recommendation or value judgment
“In my view the Google demo is pretty problematic (despite being cool), particularly in terms of likely reliability, but no matter.”
Our reading: In Marcus's view, Google's demo hooking a large language model to a robot, though cool, is pretty problematic, particularly in terms of likely reliability.
No horizon
Qualifier: in my view
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Observation
“The most important concern is that robotics is always harder than people think it is.”
Our reading: Robotics is always harder than people think it is.
No horizon
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Conditional forecast
“Roboticists are likely to scoff unless they see real evidence of progress than on Friday.”
Our reading: Roboticists are likely to scoff at Tesla's Friday Optimus showing unless they see real evidence of progress.
No horizon
Only if: unless they see real evidence of progress
Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid
Forecast
“None of this is to say that Tesla could not solve all of these problems eventually given enough time and money, but Friday may not be the big demo his fans are hoping for.”
Our reading: Tesla's Optimus demo on Friday, September 30, 2022 may not be the big demo Musk's fans are hoping for.
No horizon
Held from this post (5)
These records did not pass every check, so nothing about them is published. Held is not a finding.
- The record does not meet the current rules. Our reading, not assessed: Tesla's driverless car project, promised nearly yearly since 2014, is still in beta and is not really a driverless car, as it requires constant driver attention.
- The two reviews read the claim differently
- The two reviews read the claim differently
- The criteria are ambiguous. Our reading, not assessed: OpenAI apparently shut down its Rubik's cube robotics effort in 2021 without ever shipping anything resembling a product.
- Attribution is uncertain