Sensors, head-mounted cameras, recordings: Humans are helping Chinese tech companies train robots

This article was originally published in Rest of World, which covers technology’s impact outside the West.

Daniel Wang came home to his apartment in Beijing and saw a humanoid robot waiting for him. He opened the door, and the robot got to work.

The robot, developed by Shenzhen-based X Square Robot, moved slowly. It spent an hour folding about three pieces of clothing, and another arranging Wang’s shoes. Most of the actual chores were done by a human housekeeper who accompanied it.

But the robot’s main task was to collect training data from a real household. “In terms of privacy, I’m okay with showing these [home] scenes,” Wang told Rest of World. He paid 149 yuan ($22) for the three-hour service. “I feel like I made some contribution to physical AI.”

Robotics development worldwide is constrained by a shortage of training data that combines complex visual and movement information. While the industry initially trained robots through teleoperation – having human workers operate robots repetitively to fold clothes or run microwaves – the approach is costly and time-consuming. It also fails to prepare robots for the variety of real-world environments they’ll encounter.

Chinese tech companies are now devising creative ways to generate training data in realistic settings. Thanks to the country’s relatively low...

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