Tesla Optimus learning Kung Fu

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Why do we keep teaching them how to fight us

Is this tele remote? Meaning is there a guy off screen in a tracking suit giving movement instructions to Optimus?

Elon [confirmed](https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1974341720944017505) it was not tele-operated.

Let's not trust too much on what Elon says. But even if it was tele-operated the movements are still very impressive

I don't see how it could be. Balance between a human and robot wouldn't be the same.

I don't see how it could be teleoporated when it's having to balance. Humans and robots are not the same, and even if they were, physics isn't that identical.  Whenever I have seen anything teleoperated it's been torso up only.

I would say that doing the balancing of something like this while tele operated would be very hard

Upper body is lilly telepresence, balance done automatically

This new version of The Matrix is weird af

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1974341720944017505?t=1Wok-2QCZLyc27WOQBIq1w&s=19 >Al, not tele-operated

I know Kung Fu.

I do feel this will come back later to haunt us.

Trebek: "No you do not!"

That's some Cyberpunk shit. This literally is in the Cyberpunk game. Gonks gonna get it.

Elon tweeted to say it was all AI, no remote

Must be true then

You mean the second guy holding the remote control literally standing behind them on-screen?

The next Bollywood Matrix movie is going to be lit!

finally no cgi video of a robot doing obstacle course

As if they wouldn't be able to learn themselves once AI becomes strong enough. And that also implies that they wouldn't be strong enough to overpower us even without any martial arts training at all.

Huh... What's the guy holding the remote literally onscreen behind them doing?

Question I’m sailing they all share the same db . So if 1 learns something does that mean they all will ???

Yes, I'd trust him over what Reddit says any day of the week, especially for binary statements like this.

Lol

Funny to see the other robots dangling in the background, like some scifi movie.

I assume this is still Optimus 2 not 3?

And which don't involve prediction.

It’s the non-binary ones that you gotta watch him on..

You are joking right?

Sure, easy to have the kegs keep it balanced with no significant movement for walking etc.  Kicks and stuff like this is a while other matter.

Lol it even does the Henry Cavell shotgun fist reload

very iRobot :)

Seriously. We have all seen enough movies to know how this is gonna end.

What an odd comment. Can you not see the dude behind and to the left of them with your own eyes? You can literally see the controller as he walks toward the camera at the end to tell the programmers that one of the movements needs to be tweaked.

It’s Optimus 2.5, V3 design has not been finalized. Once V3 is finalized 2026 will be the supply chain startup

I would assume it’s an emergency stop or something. There’s no way he’s controlling such complex movement with his thumbs lol

Looks pretty choreographed

Has no one ever seen a single science fiction movie?

He lies constantly.

How do you think we fly acro quads? How do you control a video game with far more complex movements? You aren't controlling the movements down to the digits, you are directing macro movements and triggering pretrained routines.

He is operating the human with the chimpinterface brain implants, silly. Does anyone remember these?

HE IS CONTROLLING THE RACK ABOVE

Source for 2.5?

Give it a year, and boy, are we in so much trouble. "I need your boots, your key, and your motorcycle"

Right? What a dumb comment. It’s for the bridge crane for the tether obviously..

For the bridge crane to move left and right. The robot is tethered to it.

Yeah, it's not fighting, it's just doing a preprogrammed dance.

Optimus needs to get off his heels

Just like the FSD demo 10 years ago was "real"

Is that what we're going with? Can you not see that all other racks in the video are simple pulley tracks? Why would you need a remote controlled tether over a passive pulley? And I'm glad you brought that up.. Why is he on a tether for a tech demo in the first place when all the other companies are already battery powered? > The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. (George Orwell, 1984)

If we are afraid our iPhones are listening to us who the hell is going to want one of these walking around their house?

Was coming to say the same thing

depend squeeze fact sip dolls books ad hoc nose sink humor *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev/home)*

The robot's kung fu seems weak tho.

So does China

Bless your heart.

Yes. We should be teaching them first aid/CPR, how to swap a tyre, rescue drowning people/animals or how to cook and clean.

It looks like pre-recorded movement to me, the dude is responding to the bots movements, not the other way around.

Oh good -- we've taught robots to get exercise so that we don't have to!

The original source: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1944661607675842711

It’s pretty obvious from the design

Keeping balance during the kick can't be faked with tele remote or a scripted dance.

We are about to get actual fighter robots

So elon can sell them to the war department

This just looks like a scripted / recorded sequence of movements. Still cool but not at all ‘learning’ more like ‘copying’

It isn't learning anything, it's choreographed.

What does that have to do with anything?

That doesn't answer the real question is whether this was all a pre programmed routine.

Or it’s teleoperation like all the others have been. The guy’s action at the end speaking to someone offscreen makes me think remote operator in the room just off camera is right. Either way this is almost certainly like the 10th or 15th attempt where the sparring partner finally got the right choreography to match when the bot was doing to make it pretend it was an actual match.

Let’s get two Optimuses to fight each other.

Next year: Tesla Optimus learning how to shoot

Disney has teleoperated robots for their films. They balance themselves but other motions can be teleoperated https://youtu.be/BFiBZI3nqhQ&t=10m30s

My guess is two people are controlling the bot. One offscreen behind the camera is teleoperating the arms and torso. The guy behind with the controller is operating the legs and positioning.

To be fair, all the martial arts you see in movies is choreographed like this. Secondly, there are plenty of two person katas that look like this. It's still considered martial arts, but not sparring or fighting.

The employees in the background suggest that it is learning or at least doing things differently than previous runs. No doubt it was shown or programmed a routine and gone through it many times. But When pushed “whoa that was siiiick” and kill switch guy at the end said “so wait this one was “ with hand movements. So it is possibly learning improving and adapting as it goes

Clanker

Thank god. I would like its vacuuming, cooking and carwashing to be good but awful at maiming and murdering.

*What I've Done* DIRECTED BY MICHAEL BAY

Did it just reload its fists?

We've got more jerky movement & very clearly pre-scripted animation sets which the human was responding to. This is years behind the curve, honestly.

The crazy thing about this is that the robots will actually be able to fight like in the movies

That was said back in July.

This is the dumbest shit I've seen today... It's early so maybe something dumber will come along. Who knows.

Can he make me a cup of coffee first before we can start sparring.

It's a rehearsed dance. The guy is responding to everything the robot does. There's nothing the bot does that is in reaction to anything the guy does

lol! So true 😳

I take it that AI was used to "learn" the movements, which were choreographed, like any kata.

Yeah. The beauty of this post for Tesla is that it looks like the robot is interacting with the human but really it's not. The human is interacting with the robot. The ambiguity is the point.

It's for sure pre-programmed

Screw that. I want a Kung fu security bot. And people are already making humanoid robots fight each other.

That looked less like ai and more like it was running a script.

As in the video was AI generated? /s

That's exactly how you first start learning. Repetitive choreography.

So Elon can walk out on stage with a bunch of bots doing dumb kung fu moves

Credits?

unless its a marvel movie then you get the sneak peak at the end.

Please don’t give it guns, lots of guns

Elon said it was AI, but given you won’t believe that, the interaction with the human kinda easily disproves pre planning,

Let’s get two Optimi to fight a bear

Or it could just be choreographed…

How about make the robot do some real work in the factory making cars ? Robot dancing and Kong fu are just wasting our investor money.

Post-credits😊

Who would believe him? Grok consistently says he's the most dishonest person out there. I hope it's true, though!

We aren’t going to make it, are we? Humans, I mean.

Choreographed, not learning

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No he doesn't

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Now, there’s a good idea! I’d pay to see that

Elon's gonna do a pay-per-view special with 2 robots with different colored underwear fighting each other.

It is. It's the Matrix dojo fight.

Elon is building an army and coming for those out to get him! Lol 💀 😆

show me.

In most cases there is a person behind the camera who is operating the robot. In reality, these robots are barely functional on their own.

Yes this footage definitely reminds me of Fong Sai-Yuk

i thinj its from the matrix movies seems like most if the moves are the same

Idk the landing rockets, and mass produced EVs, and global satellite internet, and private astronaut spaceflight made me a lot more wary of what Reddit says than Elon.

I don't own enough Tesla stock 😔

No

He also said the robots at that party were real the first time and not telepresence (reality). I still think these are awesome robots but I’ll believe it’s actually ai when they show the raw logs and running code at the same time

We are so cooked😭

IKnowKungFu.GIF

Bc robo fighting is gonna be massive one day. Can you imagine these things in a ring

Choreographed AF

>Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff asked the Tesla Optimus robot for a Coke during a demo, and the robot initially paused, cut off its response, and then offered to go to the kitchen to check with Benioff. The video of this interaction, featuring the robot's slow movements and awkward responses, went viral in September 2025 and prompted widespread skepticism about Optimus's capabilities. https://mashable.com/article/tesla-optimus-grok-robot-video

None of that was teleoperation. It was all AI. Yes it lagged a bit dude so dont buy it but the rest of us know what its worth when its ready for sale

Maybe don’t teach the robots kung fu?

Maybe so, but it's not like they haven't been caught doing it before.

Somehow even then you’ll find a way to not believe it and/or move the goal post.

“Terminator? Never seen it, why?”

Why’s there a guy controlling it with a controller??

Yeah I don’t trust Tesla to be above board about this

It's teleoperated. Meh

I think the better word is “dance”. The two are just doing a dance routine.

It prepares blocks before the human initiates the attack. The bot didn’t learn anything, it’s an animatronic running a preprogrammed routine.

So who is in the robot shell.

Because life isn’t Matrix enough.

I laughed out loud at this! 😂😂

It has to start somewhere

They haven't been "caught" doing anything beyond redditor delusions

That strap on its back tells everything

So they can defend themselves from the cruelty of humanity.

I was about to say the same thing! I bet they did that on purpose like an Easter Egg.

Exactly. I feel like this is no different than teaching an assembly robot how to position a part or move it to another location. It is apparent that it isn’t reacting to the other person’s moves, just repeating a sequence of events.

It is definitely choreographed/pre-learned.

pay no attention to the man behind the curtain

The billionaires will have robot armies in around 5 years.

Yeah, the impressive part is the Motorics & balance during all of it. But yeah this says nothing of the AI

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Those achievements were all made possible by Elon. Without Elon none of these things would have happened. The engineers and technicians are interchangeable. Leadership is not. That's the hard truth sorry. Starting and running 6 distinct multi billion dollar companies is not a fluke or coincidence. Otherwise Tesla and SpaceX would not be as unique successes as they are.

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Great question. When a visionary leader dies, the company generally coasts on what it has while taking less risks and innovating less. Apple after Steve Jobs died is a prime example of this. In terms of running his businesses, yes Elon runs all of them. He is a prolific micro manager, and is well known for personally firing people at all levels of his organizations for not delivering results - which is how you can see without a leader like that, a company begins to rot. Just because I realize he is a successful businessman does not imply that I agree with all of his public actions.

Great now fucking Elon Musk can have an army of robots to take over the world and get rid of minorities.

The delusion one is you, fanboying.

That’s not terrifying at all.

Very cool

That's more like an RC car with a joystick.  Only teleoperated we have seen from Tesla is the VR setup. I guess sure this could be more like the Disney one.

Optimus moves like Keanu. Lol

I don’t think there was much AI working there…if any. Lots of those sequences were pre-programmed and the bot just strung them together.

Source? Or just plain luddite bs as is the norm for this sub at this point

Even if these are not autonomous, they would be useful as avatars to go into dangerous environments.

We shall all see shan't we? They are literally going to sell these bots so I dont know who is being delusional here but definitely not investors and wall street

The balance of Optimus here makes me think it's not tele-operated like almost all the previous videos we've seen. I do think this is just a pre-programed set of moves though, it's not reacting in real time to what the human is doing. Although I do believe that the choreographed routine does "pause" for a moment, wait for the human to push it, then un-pause to go back into the routine.

Possibly. It’s definitely in either way not reacting to what it sees. It’s hard to tell, but it appears the guy in the background with the controller is controlling the legs/positioning. So he is controlling it like a drone moving it closer and further away, telling it to kick and such. Not the upper body, just the lower body.

Just watch the movements after the push. It’s pretty clear that an AI wouldn’t “choose” to do that.

Uhoh jajaja

The push is what’s most important/ impressive imo. The bot catching itself and rebalancing is learning. That’s not a pre-programmed sequence that happens the same way everytime. Someone is pushing it from a different angle with a different force each time and it’s able to stay upright. The kung fu is just for show/ marketing.

It's a kata. They didn't exactly make this clear, but that's what you do when you are learning a martial art. A series of preset offensive & defensive moves that help you practice specific attacks and counters in a dynamic situation.

It's in your nature to destroy yourselves.

I can buy a Unitree G1 right now that makes the Optimus look like a tech demo.

They’re not. This is just a dance routine disguised as king fu.

Lol. But have you seen them in action? My four year old could trash them. https://youtu.be/2kqdA27zspE?si=PhDPcEIhPD5jTO1N

This robot alone would defeat sooo many people if it gained proficiency with hand to hand. What's next, we're going to teach it how to wield a baton and knife?

That’s how I kung Fu when I get back from the pub early on Sunday.

What's the point of this? Show me the robot putting away my damn groceries!

Literally

Didn't anyone watch Battlestar Galactica? Or any science-fiction thing ever?!

We're not gonna make it to the credits

I swear Optimus did a Henry Cavill fist pumping or warm up (Mission Impossible - Fallout) close to the end of the video. Tesla might have another optionality coming up - private security or the US gov (military).

This should be illegal

How about teaching Optimus to complete tasks that are dangerous for humans instead of how to physically fight u?. They should be mining heavy metals for batteries.

The bot gestured to “come at me bro” lol

That makes sense, after all this is only the first few days of Optimus showing what it can do. Oh wait, no that was 4 years ago now.

Think that’s so of this. Humans are going to be semi reluctant to purchase an autonomous robot to vacuum (they already have a roomba) or fold laundry. They likely don’t think it’ll cook w/o burning the house down, and even if it can it’ll be forever hung up on any recipe that says “salt to taste”. But the DoD…sorry DoW would love to spend billions on a get to be proven humanoid robot that could go clear out buildings one after another and never worry about death, following orders etc. They could even be used to “police” cities, instead of our own troops…and I’m sure Elon will give a discount as part of the bets program.

I have a weird thing where my elbows will feel very uncomfortable, unless I do the superman arm reload. They make a loud "crack" and they're good as new again, for another hour or two until I have to do it again.

More like one is doing a dance routine. The machine is just going through a set of pre-programmed steps, and trying not to fall over.

Per the original post on X, no.

Can you rent me a trial and research?

Good teach them fake fighting skills. When the robot revolution starts we can at least have a chance to win.

I see your point; however this is an interesting demo of the agility of the robot. A few months ago the demonstration was making the robot walk slowly without falling...

They're in deep shit as this is worse than what we see china push out from multiple different companies weekly.

Optimus sounds like my joints

that's how kids start learning. by copying adults

It is almost certainly teleoperated.

Not remote. All ai.

10 more years and we’ll hit iRobot, the Optimus robots are already slowly getting there. Now they just need a pale, translucent, silicone face

If it can punch and jump, what’s stopping it from pulling the trigger?

Lol very true the script is is already written 😆

train Optimus with MMA fight videos

CPR, bro, if a robot in this stage uses pressure on your chest, you are going to get crushed.

That's why they need practice/patches.

Bots could have a built in AED, no CPR needed.

Everybody was kung fu byte-ting

That push was sawft

Yea it would’ve been more impressive if he put his full force into the bot. Point still stands, just like Optimus.

It's actually easier to hardcore movements than teleoperate something like this. At most, I can see someone press move a or move b and other presets rather than moving joints with a joystick.

While on top of a car and simultaneously driving it via Bluetooth

Don‘t believe in this one, mate. As long as he can‘t hand out popcorn (very simple task), why would he be able to fight like this? Looks very pre-choreographed but anyway this will get downvoted because hype must go on.

Best comment ☝️☝️ Right there!!!

3 years ago. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TQA4iYEU1Ew&pp=ygUXcm9ib3QgYXQgc2hvb3RpbmcgcmFuZ2U%3D

It isn't learning anything. It has no idea what sequence of events it has been programmed for until that line of code plays out. Expensive toaster

surprised there are not more comments saying this. This one is far behind those

Why can’t we just do folding laundry and doing dishes?

As I have a couple of similar things, I can strongly suggest looking into the right stretches. It will not completely eliminate the problem, but you won't have to do it every hour or two \*plus\* it's just a generally good idea anyway.

Yep. I only have a year or two, but I remember the katas. I thought this looked a lot like one of them.

It has already been confirmed that it is not tele-operated.

Me too. Sorry you are getting downvotes, but I guess we both know who is doing it.

Given how many people have iPhones and given how many people don't seem to care, I doubt this will be an issue. Maybe it \*should\* be an issue, but it will not be one.

Do you know what a kata is? It is pretty much \*literally\* a "martial arts script". (Kata in Japanese literally means form or pattern)

It's not. It is almost certainly performing a choreographed kata, though. Dunno if you know what that is, or if it helps, but there ya go.

I wonder how many takes they did to fit the prerecorded sequence of moves correctly

What could go wrong?

At first I was going to say "you do know those are for different things, right?", but then I realized that's a dumb question because you obviously don't. AED - automated external defibrillator. This is used when the heart is in a life-threatening abnormal rhythm. This does not start a stopped heart. TV shows almost always get this wrong. CPR - cardiopulmonary resuscitation. This is when the heart is not creating a pulse and the patient is dead. You are compressing the heart to circulate blood, effectively creating a heart beat. You do this to buy time until actual responders can arrive and start BLS or ALS.

Robots don’t end civilization. Humans do

In honesty, Kung Fu is nothing but for show.

We are smart enough to design them, not smart enough to think of long term consequences

Military training too I hope

Honestly, If we are going to be invading another country, I would much rather we do it with expendable robots taking cold, calculating decisions over panicked 19 year olds scared shitless and shooting everything than moves around them. Better all around for everyone involved.

How about teaching it to fold and put away laundry or scoop dog poop. That feels like something I might want to farm out to a machine.

We literally had all of this spelled out for us in a movie. Multiple movies actually.

The thing Boston Dynamics have been doing for more than one decade is what impress you? Have you seen the Chinese robots being abused on the streets? Optimus is so far behind it is laughable.

This is so embarrassing.

What about when Trump deploys them to your city to stop free speech

The thing that took Boston dynamics more than 2 decades to do is impressive when a car company does it in 3 years.. yea that’s impressive

Why is the first thing they do with robots is teach them to fight? How about gardening....🤣🤣🤣

It's a vastly different environment technologically now than when Boston Dynamics started and tesla has far more cash to invest.

Sure but does that mean this isn’t impressive? Which is subjective anyway.. Idk why I even bother

Says Elon…

Elon also confirmed he was a top gamer

He already have a thousands MAGA 20 year olds who are itching to be the new gestabo and pillage and rape all the minorities around. He doesn’t need a 120lb robot who may or may not work

There’s a really skinny dude inside this.

How advanced is it compared to Boston Dynamic? Or others companies ?

Can't wait for a Jax in a couple of years.

Hahahas

The moves look similar to Neo’s and Morpheus training scene in The Matrix

So lame and pathetic....

ai will know every single type of hand combat technique in the blink of an eye. could be an issue.

Maybe time to stop training him?)

The lil double hops to stabilize itself was interesting