Forum From The Archives: Inside Silicon Valley's Race to Build a Home Robot
CloudMinds launches new humanoid robots at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, China, on July 5, 2024. (NurPhoto via Getty Images)
When investigative journalist Stephen Witt visited Silicon Valley’s 1X Technologies to meet a new home robot named Neo, he discovered a device full of contradictions: It was elegantly designed, but often struggled to complete even the simplest of tasks, taking longer than a minute to retrieve a bottle of water. Despite its limitations, more than 10,000 people have placed deposits for the $20,000 android, and Neo is just one of a dozen humanoid robots scheduled for release in the next year. We talk to Witt about the appeal – and challenges – of home robots and how quickly the technology is actually advancing.
Guests:
- Stephen Witt, investigative journalist and author; his recent piece for the New Yorker is “Are Humanoid Robots Ready to Be Deployed”; His most recent book is “The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, Nvidia and the World’s Most Coveted Microchip”