Elon Musk’s recent announcement on Twitter that “Tesla will have genuinely useful humanoid robots in low production for Tesla internal use next year” suggests that robots that have physical human-like characteristics and provide “genuinely useful” function might be with us soon.

However, despite decades of trying, useful humanoid robots have remained a fiction that never seems to quite catch up with reality. Are we finally on the crux of a breakthrough? It’s relevant to question whether we really need humanoid robots at all.

Tesla’s Optimus robot is just one of several emerging humanoid robots, joining the likes of Boston Dyanmic’s Atlas, Figure AI’s Figure 01, Sanctuary AI’s Phoenix and many others. They usually take the form of a bipedal platform that is variously capable of walking and sometimes, jumping, along with other athletic feats.