The human behind the robot’s hands.

#ensakidag 504: 1X’s new robot hands, and the human behind the curtain

A robot pouring tea and building LEGO. Cool, sure. But that isn’t why I’m recording this.

1X showed new hands for its home robot NEO: 25 degrees of freedom, tendon-driven (the fingers are pulled by cables from motors further inside, just as yours are controlled by muscles in your forearm), tactile sensing, water-resistant, food-safe. Impressive. But the real story isn’t the hand. It’s the data the hand collects. Dexterity in the real world is the fuel that trains the world models meant to understand physics: what happens when you squeeze the egg too hard. The hand is the means, not the goal.

And here’s the thing everyone is laughing at: the robot is still teleoperated. A human is controlling it behind the scenes. “Ha, it can’t do anything on its own.” But this is precisely how you build. The concept is called Wizard of Oz, here combined with Paul Graham’s old “initially, do things that don’t scale”. Today’s cheat is tomorrow’s training data... if it works.

And a thought from my old memory bank. In episode 164, seven years ago, I dreamed of superhands. Why settle for merely imitating us? Now that they’re almost here, I’m less certain. Perhaps the hardest achievement isn’t strength or speed, but being gentle and safe beside a person in a kitchen.

And as usual, don’t swallow the demo whole or blindly follow the headlines. This is a company video, and the promises (millions of cycles, IP68) are exactly the sort of thing that needs independent evidence. Watch, be fascinated, but dig a level deeper.

What would you dare let a half-finished robot do in your home? Are we getting close to asking for help going to the toilet 🫣

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