Domestic robots are coming soon to our homes | Press review n°30
In this weekly press review about artificial intelligence: the first humanoid robots from 1X Technologies will be delivered in 2026, AI is a digital tsunami, and the militarization of Silicon Valley.
Welcome to the 30th press review of Artificial reality. Here is a selection of important news about artificial intelligence during the week of October 27 to November 2, 2025. Have a good read!
📰 Read
Domestic robots are coming soon to our homes
The first buyers of the humanoid robot Neo will welcome it into their apartment or house as early as next year. Journalist Joanna Stern of The Wall Street Journal spent a day with it and recounts her experience in an article published last Tuesday.
Neo is an android built by the Norwegian and U.S. company 1X Technologies. It is 170 cm tall (5 feet and 6 inches) and weighs 30 kg (66 pounds). Designed to be a domestic robot, it will be able, for example, to place cutlery in the dishwasher, clean the kitchen counter, retrieve items from the fridge, open the front door, and fold clothes.
At present, Neo is not yet autonomous and must be controlled remotely by a technician wearing a virtual reality headset. This teleoperator performs all of Neo’s tasks using controllers, except for opening the front door, which the android can already do on its own.
It is planned that Neo will gradually be able to handle most household chores autonomously starting in 2026. In the initial phase, however, users will sometimes need to schedule appointments with a teleoperator through an app to decide which tasks he or she will perform remotely and when. The technician could, for instance, water the plants on Tuesday and vacuum on Wednesday.
Data collection
1X’s director, Bernt Børnich, warns that Neo’s task execution will not always be of high quality when it first becomes autonomous. The android will likely be slow and won’t always succeed in completing the requested actions. It will improve over time as the company gathers user data, which will be used for its training.
The fact that 1X Technologies will soon ship its first domestic robots even though they are not yet autonomous is precisely to obtain more training data. Every movement Neo makes will be filmed and recorded. 1X employees will not have access to these videos, except when a technician operates the android remotely. The company may also review the recordings if the user grants permission, for example after an incident.
In any case, these personal or even intimate videos will be stored in data centers and could still be obtained by third parties, for example by cybercriminals doing data breaches.
I Tried the First Humanoid Home Robot. It Got Weird. (The Wall Street Journal)
“It’s not for everyone”
One of the main disadvantages of Neo is that it comes with privacy invasion. “It’s not for everyone,” conceded Bernt Børnich in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “If you buy this product, it is because you’re OK with that social contract. If we don’t have the data, we can’t make the product better.”
Some privacy‑related safeguards are nevertheless provided: it is possible to blur people in the videos and to forbid the android from entering certain rooms of the house or the apartment. In addition, a teleoperator will not be allowed to take control of the robot without the user’s permission. However, Bernt Børnich didn’t talk about the robot’s microphones and it is possible that they will be constantly active.
Safety risks
On top of the privacy invasion, there are other risks related to physical safety. The robot could for example forget to turn off a stove, start a fire with a candle, hurt someone with a knife or drop a heavy object on a person or an animal.
To avoid this kind of accidents, 1X CEO says that, initially, Neo will not be allowed to pick up objects that are “very hot”, “very heavy”, and “very sharp.” The Wall Street Journal didn’t address the question of cyberattacks. Hackers could potentially take control of the robot and attack its owners or their children, damage their property, or steal items of value.
Physical AI
The purchase price of Neo for the first buyers is $20,000. It will also be possible to rent it for $499 per month, with a minimum rental period of six months. Families with young children are currently not allowed to order a unit, for safety reasons.
Neo is a first glimpse of the advent of physical artificial intelligence in our homes. Other humanoid robots are also under development, such as Optimus by Tesla or Figure 03 by Figure AI. These androids will likewise find their way into the residences of people who judge that their benefits outweigh their risks.
1X CEO Defends Why the Neo Humanoid Robot Belongs in Your Home (The Wall Street Journal)
Seven important news this week
ICE and CBP Agents Are Scanning Peoples’ Faces on the Street To Verify Citizenship (404 Media)
You Can’t Refuse To Be Scanned by ICE’s Facial Recognition App, DHS Document Says (404 Media)
AI browsers are a cybersecurity time bomb (The Verge)
Senators propose banning teens from using AI chatbots (The Verge)
Meta’s Ray-Ban Glasses Users Film and Harass Massage Parlor Workers (404 Media)
Rise of the Killer Chatbots (Wired)
Why AI Breaks Bad (Wired)
🎥 Watch
AI, the digital tsunami
What will our world look like with autonomous lethal weapons, generalized facial recognition and wholly convincing deepfakes? Arte answers these questions in a new documentary about artificial intelligence.
Artificial Intelligence: The Digital Tsunami (ARTE.tv Documentary)
Seven important videos this week
Bombshell: ICE Caught Mass Spying On Americans With Illegal Spyware (Secular Talk)
ChatGPT Users Are Turning Psychotic & Manic (Secular Talk)
AI Job Apocalypse: Amazon, UPS Cut Thousands Of Jobs (Breaking Points)
New book argues superhuman AI puts humans on path to extinction (CBS News)
When AI goes ‘evil’: New fears over artificial intelligence (MSNBC)
How artificial intelligence is transforming the defence industry (France 24 English)
Bubble Watch: Nvidia Value Surpasses Entire German Economy (Breaking Points)
🔈 Listen
What Palantir sees
In the new episode of Interesting Times with Ross Douthat, The New York Times journalist interviews Shyam Sankar, the Chief Technology Officer of data analysis company Palantir.
Among the topics of their conversation is the fact that the Silicon Valley is currently strengthening its ties with the U.S. military, and this applies to most major AI companies such as OpenAI, Meta, Google, Anthropic, and xAI.
Read: The militarization of Silicon Valley | Press review n°18
Listen to Interesting Times with Ross Douthat on The New York Times
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Have a good week,
Arnaud
