1X, the AI and robotics company behind a $20,000 home robot that will clean your house and water your plants, wants potential customers to know two things:
- First, the Neo Robot has several layers of security that will prevent it from transforming into the Terminator and becoming a murder bot.
- Second, the company will need you to sign a waiver, allowing human operators to see through the robot’s eyes and help it perform tasks around your home.
That’s a pretty big asterisk attached to the promise of high-tech help. Maybe you want your own android valet, or a cyber-maid, or you think it would be cool to have an automatonic nanny. The list of possible roles human-like robots will undoubtedly play in the future goes on and on. But having real people spy on you and your family, basically inviting employees of 1X into your homes? That’s a tough sell.
We all suspect this is what will happen regardless, of course, and we should be paranoid. How many times have you been talking with a friend about something and suddenly that very thing is popping up in targeted ads on your phone? At least 1X is being upfront about the imposition. “If we don’t have your data, we can’t make the product better,” 1X CEO Bernt Børnich said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.
“You have to be okay with this for the product to be useful.”
But how useful is Neo? According to the below video, it takes about a minute for Neo to fetch a bottle of water. Watching Neo attempt to load the dishwasher is kind of like watching Robert De Niro pretend to be a young man in The Irishman. Awkward.
What makes this even more awkward is the fact that these tasks were not actually performed by an autonomous robot at all. A human operator – hilariously named Turing – was operating Neo remotely via a VR headset. The voice of the robot in the above video is also Turing’s, not Neo’s. At this stage it reminds me more of the genetically-engineered Na’vi that Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) operates in James Cameron’s Avatar than an actual self-driving bot. Only not as sleek, fast, tall or strong.
The 5’6″ Neo actually only weighs 66 lbs. This is to prevent it from accidentally hurting someone if it topples over (which seemed about to happen during that tense dishwasher moment). Also, unlike the Na’vi, the Neo is not blue. In fact, the turtleneck-wearing bot comes in tan, gray and dark brown. Perhaps someday 1X will go the Apple iMac route and offer it in canary yellow, Na’vi blue and Kermit the Frog green.
All we know for now is that this is what early adopters can expect in 2026. The robot will perform “most” tasks on its own, and customers can schedule times with a human operator (and zones where the human operator cannot go). Early adopters have to be okay with the “social contract” Børnich notes, in order for 1X to train the Neo’s brain, though he assures us that 1X is not Big Brother, but rather Big Sister – here to help.
Science-Fiction Keeps Warning Us And We Keep Ignoring The Red Flags
Of course, there are plenty of reasons for concern. Invoking Big Brother calls to mind George Orwell’s terrifying cautionary tale, 1984. The potential for surveillance is certainly chilling. Beyond science-fiction literature, we also have plenty of films and television shows that have warned us of the rise of robots.
I mentioned Terminator above. In those films, humanity has been all but destroyed by sentient robots. In HBO’s hit science-fiction series Westworld, lifelike androids are used mainly for sexual deviancy (the likely real-world use for this kind of technology in the long-run) in a Western-themed theme park. Of course, the motives of the company running the park are even more nefarious. When things go belly-up, the park’s “hosts” are not gentle with their human guests.
Two recent Apple TV shows have centered around robots. In Murderbot, Alexander Skarsgård’s security droid learns how to bypass his security protocols. You can probably imagine some of what comes next.
But Neo reminds me most of Apple TV’s (tragically cancelled) Sunny. In that series, Suzie (Rashida Jones), an American woman living in Japan after marrying a Japanese man, receives an advanced home robot named Sunny (voiced by Joanna Sotomura). The bot is quite a lot more advanced than Neo, and can perform all sorts of tasks autonomously. But Sunny also has a dark side and a past that’s tied to organized crime. I don’t want to spoil it too much but it’s quite entertaining and unique.
What might be less entertaining is an actual real-life bot that finds a way around its security protocols, or mistakes your pet parrot for a walnut. Sorry, kids. Your parrot is no more! It has ceased to be! It’s expired and gone to meet its maker! This is a late parrot! It’s a stiff! Bereft of life! It rests in peace! If Neo Robot hadn’t nailed it to the perch, it would be pushing up the daisies! It’s run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible! THIS IS AN EX-PARROT!
And now for something completely different.
What do you make of the Neo Robot? If you had $20,000 laying around, would you invite Neo into your home? Would you be okay with a human operator strapped to a VR headset rifling through your dirty laundry? Is $20,000 a bit much to ask for people to be guinea pigs for 1X?
Let me know on Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook. Also be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel and follow me here on this blog. Sign up for my newsletter for more reviews and commentary on entertainment and culture.
