Tesla CEO Elon Musk has caused a stir in the tech community by posting a short video showing his humanoid robot Optimus performing moves that mimic a kung fu sparring session with a human. The video, titled “Tesla Optimus Learns Kung Fu“, demonstrates remarkable speed and fluidity in executing blocks and punches.
While it's not a full-blown fight, but a controlled, dance-like sequence, Optimus's ability to perform coordinated and dynamic actions reflects significant advances in its balance, actuation, and real-time control systems. The robot has already shown that it can learn tasks from videos and perform complex movements such as dance pirouettes.
Ashok Eluswamy, Tesla’s vice president of AI software and a principal developer of Autopilot, says the kung fu demonstration is just the beginning. According to him, the company’s long-term strategy is to create a single, unified AI platform that will serve as the “brain” for both cars (via FSD) and Optimus robots.
The key idea is that the main challenge is common: perceiving, understanding and navigating a complex, unstructured human environment.
Eluswamy is a proponent of a visual-based approach. Neural networks that learn to interpret road signs, pedestrians and traffic using camera footage can be adapted to interact with objects, tools and people in factory or home environments. By leveraging the vast datasets and experience from the development of FSD (the suite of active driver assistance systems), Tesla intends to make much faster progress in the development of Optimus.
The integration of these two AI platforms is a central priority that promises to accelerate the creation of intelligent humanoid robots. See also the video.