The human work behind humanoid robots is being hidden
The Hidden Labor Behind Humanoid Robots
As we stand at the threshold of a new era in artificial intelligence, where machines are poised to surpass human capabilities in physical tasks, a crucial aspect of this revolution is being deliberately obscured from public view. The human work behind humanoid robots is being hidden, and this lack of transparency has significant implications for how we understand and interact with these machines.
The Era of Physical AI
In January, Jensen Huang, the head of Nvidia, proclaimed that we are entering the era of physical AI, where artificial intelligence will move beyond language and chatbots into physically capable machines. This marks a significant shift from the current state of automation, where single-purpose robot arms are used to mimic human limbs. The new way is to replicate the way humans think, learn, and adapt while they work.
The Problem of Transparency
However, the lack of transparency about the human labor involved in training and operating such robots leaves the public both misunderstanding what robots can actually do and failing to see the strange new forms of work forming around them. Consider how, in the AI era, robots often learn from humans who demonstrate how to do a chore. Creating this data at scale is now leading to Black Mirror-esque scenarios.
Data Collection and Human Labor
A worker in Shanghai recently spent a week wearing a virtual-reality headset and an exoskeleton while opening and closing the door of a microwave hundreds of times a day to train the robot next to him. In North America, the robotics company Figure appears to be planning something similar: It announced in September that it would partner with the investment firm Brookfield, which manages 100,000 residential units, to capture "massive amounts" of real-world data "across a variety of household environments." Figure did not respond to questions about this effort.
Tele-Operation and Wage Arbitrage
Just as our words became training data for large language models, our movements are now poised to follow the same path. Except this future might leave humans with an even worse deal, and it's already beginning. Some robotics companies employ people to operate their robots remotely, a practice known as tele-operation. Neo, a $20,000 humanoid robot from the startup 1X, is set to ship to homes this year, but the company's founder, Bernt Øivind Børnich, told me recently that he's not committed to any prescribed level of autonomy. If a robot gets stuck, or if the customer wants it to do a tricky task, a tele-operator from the company's headquarters in Palo Alto, California, will pilot it, looking through its cameras to iron clothes or unload the dishwasher.
The Consequences of Concealed Labor
This isn't inherently harmful—1X gets customer consent before switching into tele-operation mode—but privacy as we know it will not exist in a world where tele-operators are doing chores in your house through a robot. And if home humanoids are not genuinely autonomous, the arrangement is better understood as a form of wage arbitrage that re-creates the dynamics of gig work while, for the first time, allowing physical tasks to be performed wherever labor is cheapest.
A History of Hidden Labor
We've been down similar roads before. Carrying out "AI-driven" content moderation on social media platforms or assembling training data for AI companies often requires workers in low-wage countries to view disturbing content. And despite claims that AI will soon enough train on its outputs and learn on its own, even the best models require an awful lot of human feedback to work as desired.
The Public's Misunderstanding
These human workforces do not mean that AI is just vaporware. But when they remain invisible, the public consistently overestimates the machines' actual capabilities. That's great for investors and hype, but it has consequences for everyone. When Tesla marketed its driver-assistance software as "Autopilot," for example, it inflated public expectations about what the system could safely do—a distortion a Miami jury recently found contributed to a crash that killed a 22-year-old woman (Tesla was ordered to pay $240 million in damages).
The Future of Humanoid Robots
If Huang is right, and physical AI is coming for our workplaces, homes, and public spaces, then the way we describe and scrutinize such technology matters. Yet robotics companies remain as opaque about training and tele-operation as AI firms are about their training data. If that does not change, we risk mistaking concealed human labor for machine intelligence—and seeing far more autonomy than truly exists.
Conclusion
The human work behind humanoid robots is being hidden, and this lack of transparency has significant implications for how we understand and interact with these machines. As we stand at the threshold of a new era in artificial intelligence, it's essential that we acknowledge the human labor involved in training and operating these machines. Only then can we truly understand the capabilities and limitations of humanoid robots and ensure that their development is aligned with human values and needs.
