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In China, a novel human-robot cleaning service is emerging, pairing human cleaners with AI-powered robots to tackle household chores. Lin Meiqiong, a 56-year-old cleaner in Beijing, now works alongside a white-and-silver robot named Quanta X1 Pro, equipped with cameras and mechanical claws.

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It's definitely different. I used to have to do everything myself. It's reduced the workload a bit.

This service, a joint venture between the household help platform 58.com and robotics firm X Square, aims to reduce the workload for human cleaners. While Lin notes it has "reduced the workload a bit," the robot's performance, such as folding clothes, is still rudimentary, resembling "a child learning to fold clothes for the first time."

The service, costing 149 yuan ($22) for three hours, is seen by companies like X Square as a vital step in collecting real-world data for embodied artificial intelligence. Unlike language models trained on internet text, robots require extensive physical interaction data. "It is much more informative to put the robot out there and study what happens than staying forever in the lab," explained Christoforos Mavrogiannis from the University of Michigan.

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Even though it's not that perfect, there are still parts of it that surprised me.

Around 200 households have used the service since its March rollout. Customers like Tan Pei, an advertising professional, booked it out of curiosity. "Even though it's not that perfect, there are still parts of it that surprised me," she said, particularly noting the robot's ability to fold trousers "quite well."

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It is much more informative to put the robot out there and study what happens than staying forever in the lab.