AI companies including 1X Technologies, Figure, Tesla, Agility, and Boston Dynamics are competing to build humanoid robots powered by physical AI, with China described as a formidable player. Last year, a Wall Street Journal video showed 1X's home robot NEO clumsily loading a dishwasher with help from a human teleoperator, and in July 1X unveiled NEO's new dexterous, tendon-driven hands, which the company said remove the hardware ceiling on what humanoid robots can do and make data the only barrier to capabilities. Robots need massive amounts of data to operate autonomously, spawning a data-harvesting industry: Shift pays participants to record themselves doing chores or physical labor, and in May offered New Yorkers free cleanings performed by employees wearing head-strapped cameras. Shift's privacy policy prohibits recording children, intimate situations, or passwords, and co-founder Anton Poletaev says algorithms anonymize personal information including faces. 1X says the latest NEO, expected to ship to consumers by the end of 2026, will operate autonomously by default, with expert teleoperators taking over unfamiliar tasks; CEO Bernt Børnich framed this as a social contract.