Last year, Norwegian-US tech company 1X announced a strange new product: “the world’s first consumer-ready humanoid robot designed to transform life at home.”
Standing 168 centimetres tall and weighing in at 30 kilograms, the US$20,000 Neo bot promises to automate common household chores, such as folding laundry and loading the dishwasher.
Neo has a built-in artificial intelligence (AI) system, but for tricky tasks, it requires a 1X employee wearing a virtual reality helmet to remotely take over the robot. The operator can see whatever the bot does inside your house, and the process is recorded for future learning.
Other household androids are expected to hit the market this year. But Neo shows the issues at play, which will be familiar to anyone who has watched the AI boom of the past few years: products launched with great fanfare and limited capabilities, concealed privacy risks, and invisible remote workers behind the scenes.
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