Tesla used humans to remotely control some capabilities of its Optimus robot prototypes at a recent event designed to generate investor enthusiasm for forthcoming products, according to people familiar with the matter.

Tesla's plan to put a can-do-anything-for-you humanoid on the market still looks a long way off. Why it matters: CEO Elon Musk said last week at the company's "We, Robot" event that the Tesla Optimus humanoid "will be the biggest product ever of any kind.

Tesla's main announcement coming from the company's recent "We, Robot" event was the Robotax i (or the CyberCab, we're still not sure about the name). But perhaps the biggest impression was made by Tesla's updated Optimus robots, which freely walked among the crowd, talked to guests, served drinks, played games, and danced.

One of the highlights of Tesla’s “We, Robot” event wasn’t the self-driving cars but the allegedly autonomous robots. Tesla’s Optimus bot isn’t new, but this is the first event where actual robots joined the stage—and the crowd—rather than a person in a robot costume. Or was it?

During Tesla’s “We, Robot” event last week, which TechCrunch covered late into the night, sources on the ground sent me a handful of videos of the

The Tesla Optimus Robot is a general-purpose robot created by Tesla and showcased alongside the Tesla Robovan at the "We, Robot" event at the L.A. Warner B

Tesla's Optimus Robots were remotely operated by humans at the Cybercab event, but they will likely become fully autonomous machines soon.

The notion of future-generation robots wrapped in synthetic flesh walking among us undetected one day may excite the imagination, but the blurring of