MIT Technology Review AI reporting · 14h ago · 3/5
Humanoid data ↗
Robotics companies are increasingly collecting real-world movement data from humans to train humanoid robots, following the scaling-law approach that succeeded with large language models. Data collection efforts range from academic labs to commercial ventures including exoskeleton-wearing workers in China and gig workers in Nigeria, Argentina, and India, with $6.1 billion invested in humanoid robotics in 2025. However, experts remain uncertain whether collecting movement data at the required scale is technically feasible or economically viable for building profitable humanoid systems.
Just as our words became training data for large language models, robotics companies are betting that data about the way we move will help them build more capable humanoid robots.
All this points to a surreal future of work in which physical laborers increasingly become data collectors.