The 1X Neo Robot Has Freaky Fast Fingers

Courtesy of 1X

Courtesy of 1X

“We love this idea that a robot can be this peaceful and fun and goofy safe presence in a life,” says Dar Sleeper, 1X’s vice president of product and design. “Something that feels comfortable to be around, something that’s soft from the inside to the outside. If you want something to fit into your life, it can’t feel like it’s from a whole different universe.”

Judgment Day

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

This starts to get weird because, if the advertising for the Neo is anything to go by, 1X seems pretty sure that you’re also going to want to have sex with its robot. The marketing for Neo’s new fingers is all very sensual. Smooth jazz plays in the background of a soft, warmly lit video. The robo digits curl around a wine glass, turn off a light, unzip a jacket, and gently fondle some grapes. In previous ads, the humans stand just very close to Neo and look at it flirtatiously.

I don’t mean to kink shame if you’re into that, but this is a deeply strange strategy for selling a robot that can also become a portal for random human operators to peer into and interact with everything in your home. 1X says that human “experts” can only ever enter your home when you’ve specifically requested it. You can also monitor the video they are capturing via a mobile app. A ring light around Neo’s ear turns blue to indicate that a person is connected, and you can kick the expert out at any time. 1X did not immediately answer 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 tell exactly how well these actuators and hand movements work. When asked if the videos were made by the machine automations or by someone controlling them remotely, a 1X representative wrote that “some of the videos are machine-articulated while some are operated to show the upper limit of the hardware capabilities.” The video of the Neo lifting a weight with a slow, come-hither finger curl is the robot’s real, fully automated capability. But the video of the Neo performing American Sign Language is not and was instead operated remotely by a human.

On a Zoom call with WIRED, Terfurth, and Sleeper, a fully automated Neo robot stood behind the two. Sleeper asked it to show off how fast it could move its fingers. Neo raised and then lowered one finger at a time, slowly at first. Then it started to speed up—faster and faster until the fingers drummed so fast they blurred together on the screen. It carried on, almost too fast to see, until Sleeper barked at it to stop. The robot froze. Later, it flashed me a peace sign.