Courtesy of 1X

Courtesy of 1X

“We love the idea that a robot can be a peaceful, fun, silly and confident presence in life,” says Dar Sleeper, vice president of product and design at 1X. “Something you’re comfortable with, something that’s smooth from the inside out. If you want something to fit into your life, you can’t feel like it’s from a completely different universe.”

Doomsday

1X says the goal is full automation of the Neo, but for now, the robot is partially teleoperated, as noted in a Wall Street Journal video last year. That means human operators can take control of Neo remotely and even look through a camera to see the space around him. This is actually a feature called Expert Mode, intended to handle more complicated tasks by bringing a human into the loop. It also means that if you have one in your house, it will be able to see everything around it.

This is starting to get strange because, if the company’s advertising for the Neo is anything to go by, the robot can be in very intimate situations. The marketing for Neo’s new fingers seems very sensual. Smooth jazz plays in the background in a soft, warmly lit video. Robotic digits curl around a glass of wine, turn off a light, unbutton a jacket and gently caress some grapes. In previous ads, the humans stand very close to Neo and look at him flirtatiously. (After this story was published, a 1X representative clarified that the company does not consider Neo or any of this marketing material to be flirty.)

Not to be embarrassed, but this is a strange strategy to sell a robot that can also become a portal for human operators to look at and interact with things in your home. 1X says human “experts” can only enter your home when you specifically request it, the robot’s movements can be restricted, and faces and other sensitive information can be blurred. You can also monitor the video they are capturing through a mobile app. A ring of light around Neo’s ear turns blue to indicate that a person is connected, and you can eject the expert at any time. 1X did not immediately respond to questions about how the company plans to prevent bad actors or hackers from taking over the robot.

The other problem with the human element is that it is not yet possible to know exactly how well these actuators and hand movements work. When asked if the videos were made by automated machines or by someone controlling them remotely, a 1X representative wrote that “some of the videos are articulated by machines, while others are operated to show the upper limit of the hardware’s capabilities.”

On a Zoom call with WIRED, Terfurth, and Sleeper, a fully automated Neo robot stood behind the two. Sleeper asked him to show how fast he could move his fingers. Neo raised and then lowered one finger at a time, slowly at first. Then it began to speed up, faster and faster until the fingers were tapping so fast they blurred into the screen. He continued, almost too fast to see, until Sleeper yelled at him to stop. The robot froze. Later, he showed me a peace sign.