Elon Musk shared a video of Tesla's Optimus robot performing yoga moves and sorting blocks on Sunday.
In the video, Tesla says the robot is now capable of locating its limbs in space solely using its vision and Tesla's on-board neural net to perform tasks.
"Optimus is now capable of self-calibrating its arms and legs," text in the video said.
The video shows the bot picking up blocks, sorting them based on their colors, and properly orienting them as it sorts them.
Optimus can now sort objects autonomously 🤖
— Tesla Optimus (@Tesla_Optimus) September 23, 2023
Its neural network is trained fully end-to-end: video in, controls out.
Come join to help develop Optimus (& improve its yoga routine 🧘)
→ https://t.co/dBhQqg1qya pic.twitter.com/1Lrh0dru2r
The electric-car maker first announced it planned to start developing humanoid robots in 2021 during an event where Musk brought a dancer dressed up as a robot on stage. The billionaire has said the robots could be used in factories or as butlers and companions to humans.
"It has profound applications for the economy," Musk said in 2021, adding that "in the future, physical work will be a choice."
The new video on Sunday appears to show Optimus' balance may be improving. The Tesla bot appeared to perform a yoga pose balanced on one leg in the video.
Jim Fan, a senior AI scientist at Stanford University, said on X, formerly known as Twitter, that he was "genuinely impressed by the hardware quality" of the bot in the video, adding that Optimus' five-finger hands will eventually "prove far superior in daily tasks" to competitor bots like Boston Dynamics' Atlas, which only has grippers instead of human-like fingers.
"The motions are fluid, and the aesthetics is amazing as well," he wrote on X.
Less than a year ago, the Optimus robot could barely walk during a demo at the second annual Tesla AI Day event. One of the prototypes struggled to walk slowly onto the stage and another had to be wheeled on stage. At the time, several experts told Insider the robot appeared to be trailing behind competitors like Boston Dynamics.
Musk said during the 2022 event that it was the first time the prototype had walked "without any support."
"The robot can actually do a lot more than we showed you, we just didn't want it to fall on its face," Musk told spectators at AI Day last year.
Do you work for Tesla or have insight to share? Reach out to the reporter from a non-work device and email at gkay@insider.com
