alt Hacker NewsCan someone enlighten me WHO the customer to those million Optimus robots are?
I've been working in robotics for years now, I've talked with ex Optimus developers, FigureAI devs, some Japanese humanoid devs, researchers, talked to people in conferences and no one. Absolutely no one I've met take Optimus seriously. If a lab is considering buying a humanoid they'll go to China. Hell, even MIT professors that have been crucial to the development (Boston dynamics etc) seems to not put too much emphasis on Tesla.
But I've also been to industrial robotics conferences, mostly for customers and user focus and not developers and usually the perception is different in those circles.
So who are the optimistic customers for Optimus?
Replies
The same customers as grok. In the future where humanoid robots see some level deployment, there might be some people that need their robot to make CSAM and say the n-word.
Federal US government & to some extent local law enforcement. They most likely won't be able to use them, but they will buy them and put them in a warehouse. Long tradition of US government doing this with tech, going back to SGI workstations in the 90s if not earlier.