Hot take: Most humanoid demos are misleading

Almost every humanoid robot demo I see has the same problems:

1. Perfect lighting. Flat floors. No obstacles.
2. The robot does ONE task in isolation
3. Convenient camera cuts right when something might go wrong
4. No indication of how many takes it took

I watched that Tesla Optimus folding shirts video. Looked cool. Then you read that it was running at 1/10th speed and there was a person with a controller just off camera ready to intervene.

Or the new Neo release videos where it was basically all teloperated.

Or those warehouse demos where the robot picks up a box perfectly. Great. Now do it 500 times in a row. With boxes that aren't all identical. While someone walks past unexpectedly.

I'm not saying these robots aren't impressive. They are. But there's a massive gap between "works in a demo" and "works reliably in reality." And the marketing doesn't make that clear.