Ex-Tesla Optimus engineer: scaling human data key to robotics, physical AGI needs more

mihdalal · x · 2026-09-16

An engineer who recently left Tesla's Optimus team reflects on his work spanning low-latency visuomotor systems, on-device model deployment, sim-to-real whole-body control and dexterity, and scaling imitation learning on large human data. He remains very bullish on scaling for robotics—especially human data—but argues physical AGI still requires fundamental breakthroughs in video models, scaling laws and mastery. He'll announce his next role soon.

Related event: Ex-Tesla Optimus Engineer Departs, Cites Missing Foundations for Physical AGI(2 posts)→

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