4mo ago

1X will test humanoid robots in 'a few hundred' homes in 2025 | TechCrunch

techcrunch.com

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While Neo Gamma uses AI to walk and balance, the robot is not fully capable of autonomous movements today. To make in-home tests possible, Børnich says 1X is “bootstrapping the process” by relying on teleoperators — humans in remote locations that can view Neo Gamma’s cameras and sensors in real time, and take control of its limbs.
So yhis is a non-functional product.
Being able to walk autonomously is normally done with a lot of difficult math, which it sounds like they don't have the talent on staff to code.
Be sure to get your venture capital dollars in soon, because that's all this is here for.
Also, it's comforting to know that creepy robot face will initially be remote controlled by a rotating series of low paid total strangers. And by initially, we mean always (as in the case of Amazon checkout.)
- I mean, it's more than just the math. Math can do it on perfectly flat, clear ground in an open area. Trained AI combined carefully with math can do better, but even the most cutting edge walkers have trouble with tangling.
  
  Yeah. Which I'm sure is what they're officially selling. That's fair. Long term, walking robots are likely only going to succeed thanks to learning algorithms.
  I find it suspicious that this company is touting their AI enhancement while admitting their product can't be trusted to navigate an apartment alone.
  Personally, I would select homes with simple layouts, before conceding to constant monitoring, if I could. But I couldn't do that if my mix of math and AI was outright bad, and it couldn't handle it...
  To me, this smells like over-promising and hoping new AI algorithms outpace their promises.
  And having a remote operator just looks like a lot like a classic mechanical turk scam.
Imagine getting up in the middle of the night to take a piss and seeing Jason's cousin sitting on the couch.
1X is in Norway. Norwegians are notoriously solitary and hate small talk. Of all people it would be interesting to see how they react to domestic humanoid robots. Perhaps they will like them more than most.

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