The year is 2026. You’ve been tearing your hair out keeping up with your 1,800 square foot Bay Area bungalow: picking up items and setting them back down, turning lights on and off, and even opening doors has become too much of a burden.

That’s when it arrives: a big bulky box on the front porch. You quickly drag it in off the stoop and into the living room. Tearing open the package reveals your NEO robot from Palo Alto-based startup 1X, a dull tan bipedal machine with a knitted covering and two beady little eyes. You gaze at its sock puppet visage. $20,000 worth of chore-saving robotics in the flesh.

And then you remember: the NEO chorebot isn’t autonomous at all. There’s a human at the other end of those flat doll peepers.

This is the sad reality that will be facing many deep pocketed

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