I want to believe its true, but this seems like quite a leap forward, at that price point. Even without AI, would we know if the videos were just a person in a suit?
It was the first thing I also thought, but then I thought that would be ridiculous. But now I watched this video. And in fact, it's actually currently completely operated remotely. With the idea that they'll collect the human operated movements as training data for de AI. But right now they say the robot can autonomously only open a door.
So if you get the product now, then when the robot is operating, there's basically an extra person in your home.
You can apparentlty choose when it operates, and you can also block certain spaces in your house from the robot able to reach it. But it does feel to me like a recipe for disasters.
The leap is not really there yet and it's cheap because you are the product. The robot will be a massive headache, will work poorly for most tasks, frequently break and require maintenance. In exchange for $500/mo and providing those test hours in a novel environment and the data that goes with it, you get to have a robot in your house that occasionally does something right. The bet being made here is that they can turn that data hose into a useful robot before this poor customer experience tanks their brand.
