Xiaomi’s CyberOne robot shows us what to expect from Tesla’s promised Optimus bot

Image: Xiaomi

The Chinese tech company is known in the West for ripping off designs from Apple.

Judging from a brief demo, the bot can't do much more than walk. The CyberOne shows us the current state of robot development for a non-specialized company likeXiaomi and gives valuable context as to what we might expect from a similar looking bipedal bot:Tesla's much-hyped Optimus robot.

The CyberOne is 5 feet 8 inches tall and weighs 114 lbs, making it a short king. The car has a top speed of 3.6 km/h and comes with a pair of mitten-like hands that can open and close but seem incapable of more dexterous movement.

The bot has some sort of machine vision system for navigation that can detect depth at distances of up to eight meters, and the company claims it can also sense human emotion using some sort of artificial intelligence system. Some tech giants like Microsoft have stopped offering these types of emotion recognition artificial intelligence due to the fact that it's unscientific.

There is a video of Cyber One falling over a lot. We don't see CyberOne picking itself up because it can't.

The Cyber One is an admirably slick package that offers no surprises. It is outclassed by Boston Dynamics in terms of mobility and perception. Why don't you build it?

Evan Ackerman is a robot reporter and he points out thatXiaomi is being quite upfront about the purpose of Cyber One. The company says that work on the bot will give birth to more application scenarios in other fields. CyberOne is a marketing tool, a platform for broader R&D efforts, and a promise not to build a robot butler anytime soon.

The words should call attention to the other robot in this analysis.

Musk said he would build a robot butler. Musk said the machine would be able to follow complex human commands like "please go to a store and get me the following groceries." He recently claimed that the robot will replace people in repetitive, boring, and dangerous tasks.

Image: Tesla

Musk conflates timelines and muddies the distinction between possible future tech and current capabilities in order to give the illusion of future tech. Let's be clear,Tesla isn't selling a "general purpose" robot any time soon.

This is far beyond what even cutting-edge tech can do. Basic labour can be performed by robots in constrained and specialized scenarios. A more realistic picture of what to expect is provided by CyberOne.

I believe that a prototype humanoid bot is going to be unveiled byTesla. Like CyberOne, it will be able to walk and talk in pre-arranged demos, and may display some more advanced hand movement or lifting capabilities. It will not be buying your groceries in the near future. It is fun to build a robot for both marketing and research. I would like to know what to expect from this technology from Musk.