Forum From The Archives: Inside Silicon Valley's Race to Build a Home Robot

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Mina Kim (1:24)

Welcome to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. Here's how today's guest, Stephen Witt, in his piece for The New Yorker, describes Neo, the robot with a human-like form that's designed to obey commands and help you around the house.

Neo stands five feet six and has no facial features, except for two black cameras in place of eyes. Its proportions are a blend of those of the median American male and those of the median American female. But Neo has no skin. Instead, it wears a beige nylon turtleneck body suit, gloves and padded shoes over a see-through carapace. Under that is a skeleton made up of more than a hundred whizzing motors and cord-like artificial tendons that control Neo's limbs.

Listeners, if this sounds futuristic, Neo is actually scheduled to ship to consumers before the end of the year. And Stephen Witt joins me now to talk about whether humanoid robots are ready to be deployed. Essentially the title of his New Yorker piece. Stephen, welcome to Forum.

Stephen Witt (2:25)

Thank you for having me.

Mina Kim (2:26)

So first, what was your reaction to seeing Neo at 1X Technologies here in the Bay Area?

Stephen Witt (2:32)

You know, I had heard so much hype about this thing and I just, I didn't believe it because they'd sort of gone dark for a while at 1X after pushing it in late December of last year. And then I saw it and I was in its presence and I was just stunned. I mean, it felt like using the iPhone for the first time. It felt like using the Internet for the first time. It just felt like some kind of technological watershed had been sort of crossed. I mean, the thing was just so well designed. Then I got the opportunity to interact with it and use it a little bit. And some of those feelings faded because this robot, which looks amazing. I mean, it is just beautiful.

It is not so competent.

But it does talk back to you. You know, similar if you've been using AI to talking AI, it's like that. And it does at least try to execute your voice commands. So it's pretty impressive.

Mina Kim (3:27)

Yeah, well, actually, we have a clip of Neo's voice. Let's hear it.

Arturo (3:32)

Hey, I'm Neo.

SPEAKER_7 (3:33)

I'm here to help around the house. What's your name?

Stephen Witt (3:36)

Harry.

SPEAKER_1 (3:38)

Nice to meet you, Harry. When you have a question or want something done, just let me know.

Mina Kim (3:44)

So because this is like a physical device, essentially, it uses AI to translate what you're saying, not to answer back or respond back in text, but actually to do physical actions.

Stephen Witt (3:56)

Exactly. So if you've used AI to translate, maybe you've tried to translate from English into German, for example. The roboticists I've talked to said it's almost exactly the same for actions. They have a language of trajectories associated with the movement of joints, and it translates from English into this joint action language.

So it's almost exactly the same thing as translating into a foreign language.

Mina Kim (4:21)

But as you point out, there are still some kinks to work out, right? So what is Neo able to do reasonably well, and what can it not do so well?

Stephen Witt (4:29)

Yeah, it can definitely pick up something and put it somewhere else. So that it has mastered. It can kind of get you a glass of water, usually. I would say it has a decent success rate at that. It can fold a shirt, maybe.

It cannot do your laundry unassisted. Stairs remain a challenge for Neo. So if you have stairs in your house, it may or may not be able to get up them, and more likely not.

And then more complex tasks like, say, chop a vegetable or wash a dish or some distance away. This robot can't do that stuff.

Mina Kim (5:04)

Yeah. And these more complex commands, there needs to be a human controlling Neo in real time, right? Like a tele operator. So that meaning that Neo is at times as you write a marionette.