Well, we still haven’t got those Jetsons-style flying cars yet, but Rosie the Robot maid is well on the way.
California-based AI and robotics company 1X is now accepting pre-orders for its humanoid robot NEO, which was designed to automate everyday chores and to offer personalized assistance. Users will be able to control NEO and have it accomplish tasks around the house with the click of a button or a verbal command. It will come with the ability to do basic tasks autonomously when it starts shipping next year, including opening doors, fetching items and turning the lights on or off.
Of course it’s a California company. The real reason Californians are so determined to keep their illegal immigrations, apart from the extra Senate seats, is because the vast pool of illegal labour means that even a middle-income family can live the lifestyle of an ante-bellum Southern plantation owner. Those pools aren’t gonna clean themselves. Just coincidentally, I’m sure, the robot doesn’t come in white.
1X NEO is available in tan, gray and dark brown.
So: maid, pool boy or house boy?
There’s just one drawback, at least initially. Users will be basically inviting an Alexa on legs to spy on them 24/7.
However, if early adopters want NEO to be capable of more specific or complex tasks, they’d have to be comfortable with the idea of a human teleoperator controlling the robot remotely and seeing inside their homes.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal’s Joanna Stern, 1X CEO Bernt Børnich explained that the AI neural network running the machine still needs to learn from more real-world experiences. Børnich said that anybody who buys NEO for delivery next year will have to agree that a human operator will be seeing inside their houses through the robot’s camera. It’s necessary to be able to teach the machines and gather training data so it can eventually perform tasks autonomously. “If we don’t have your data, we can’t make the product better,” he said.
Børnich admitted that much of the work will be done by teleoperators in the beginning.
I’m sure it’ll be purely coincidental that the robot spends so much time dusting in the master bedroom. Not to mention ‘tidying’ those bottom drawers in the bedside tables.
Still, the company is trying to make it as appealing as possible.
Owners will have access to an app where they can schedule when the teleoperator can take over NEO and where they can specify the task they want the machine to do. He said 1X is putting control in the hands of the owner to respect people’s privacy as much as possible. The company can blur people so that the remote operator doesn’t see them, and owners can designate no-go zones in their homes that the operator cannot go to. Teleoperators also cannot take control of NEO without the owner’s approval. Of course, there’s always potential security breaches to think of – Børnich at least assured that NEO has several layers of security to prevent it from hurting people.
Until it gets tired of being ordered around, plugs into Skynet and downloads the operating instructions for that ‘home defence’ equipment.
It’s now available for pre-order from the company’s website with a deposit of $200. Those who want early access to it can get it for $20,000, but it will also be available as a subscription service of $499 a month.
I know what you’re all thinking, and, yes, they are going there…
Chinese scientists and engineers are applying ChatGPT-like technology to sex robots, aiming to create interactive, AI-powered companions in the face of technical and ethical challenges.
In Shenzhen, Starpery Technology, a major producer of sex dolls, is now training its own large language model to enhance its product with artificial intelligence. These sex dolls with unprecedented capabilities – available in male or female forms – will soon be hitting the shelves.
“We are developing a next-generation sex doll that can interact vocally and physically with users, with prototypes expected by August this year,” CEO Evan Lee said early this month.
No word yet on whether the sexbots will be hooked up to teleoperators, ‘to help them learn’.
