State Workers Up in Arms Over Gov. Newsom's Office Mandate, Inside Silicon Valley's Race to Build a Home Robot

From KQED. This episode is brought to you by Facebook. So you were scrolling on Marketplace, and there it was, the bike you'd been searching for. You sent a message, and it turned out the seller was super chatty, kind of funny, and an avid cyclist. The next thing you know, you're in a cycling crew, well, a community cycling group. The thing about Facebook, you might find more than what you're looking for. From a browse to a bike ride, this summer find more on Facebook. I'm Archmanning. I'm Madison Skinner. I'm Eva Jovich. I'm Decorian Moore. Want to train like a Red Bull athlete? Tell us your fitness goals this summer to enter the Red Bull Athlete Challenge. You'll get to try each of our workouts for a chance to win an ultimate Red Bull experience. Think you have what it takes. So good. So good, so good. New markdowns, up to 70% off are at Nordstrom rack stores now. Stock up and stay big on shoes, tops, dresses, accessories, and more must-haves for summer. Join the Nordi Club to unlock exclusive discounts, shop new arrivals first, and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack. Good evening. From KQED, this is the latest, a podcast that updates throughout the day, bringing you local news when you want it. I'm Dana Cronin. It's Friday, July 24th. Here are this hour's headlines from the KQED Newsroom. Live from KQED News, I'm Brian Watt in Oakland. Some Sonoma County residents who have complained for years about noise from jet departures are alarm that the Federal Aviation Administration appears to have redirected flights to appease a gathering of rich and powerful men. Reporter Anna Armstrong with the press Democrat. We were able to track down an FAA, Notam that's called Notice to Airmen. And that's when we saw that it was labeled Bohemian Grove, this notice to airmen, that traffic was shifting. The private men's club on the Russian River hosts an annual convention of top politicians and business leaders from around the globe. Flight patterns are expected to return to normal after the retreat ends later this month. San Francisco Giants legend Jeff Kent is officially part of the Baseball Hall of Fame. His induction ceremony took place Sunday morning. Kent played college ball at UC Berkeley before being drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays in 1992. His trade to the Giants in 1997 pushed his career to new heights. Here's Kent speaking at the induction ceremony in New York. San Francisco. San Francisco is home.

San Francisco is where every lesson I'd learned finally came together. Carlos Beltron, who played part of a season with the Giants in 2011, was also inducted into the Hall of Fame. And speaking of the Giants, they lost to the Angels 4 to 3 yesterday after beating them Friday and Saturday. Tonight, the Milwaukee Brewers come in for the first of three games at Oracle Park. The Brewers have the second best record in baseball. I'm Brian Watt, KQBD. Now let's get up to speed on all things politics. Governor Gavin Newsom's four-day-a-week return-to-office mandate has put him at odds with the state's powerful public employee labor unions. On today's political breakdown, host Marisa Lagos talks with KQED politics correspondent Guy Marzoradi and Cap Radio politics reporter Laura Fitzgerald about why Gavin Newsom is picking this fight and how it could affect his political ambitions. Let's dig in to Gavin Newsom's desire for state workers to fall back in love with their offices. Laura, tell us the genesis of this policy. When did Gavin Newsom announce it? Yeah, he actually announced it through an executive order. It was last summer, but unions were able to postpone that return to office four-day-a-week mandate. And, you know, to this summer, which was July 1st, was the effective date. I think Gavin Newsom's been pretty steadfast in wanting people to come back to work, no excuses. Yeah. And Guy, this is like what is exactly the policy? It's basically you got to be at your desk four days a week. Yeah, with a lot of except. I mean, there's so many state workers you think across, even across SCIU's workforce that already do in-person jobs. So, you know, this is not necessarily something that's affecting every single worker. A lot of people have been back in office. I will say. I know it's easy to poke fun at Gavin Newsom and kind of the small business image he has. Have you ever heard him sound more like a small business owner than that? It's like, wanting, number one, wanting employees to fall in love with each other. That is the most Michael Scott behavior I've ever heard from him. And then. The four-day in-person requirement as a three-day weekend. Right. That, to me, was a little confusing? Like, was that a slip of the tongue? Are you making the allegation that workers aren't working if they're remote? I mean, that feels like a little weird. It was really shocking to me, too, that that's how he was framing it. I mean, I've spent a lot of time talking to state workers just in the streets in downtown Sacramento. And I think a lot of them would really contest that characterization of them having a three-day weekend. I mean, this does, to guys' point, affect about 100. of the more than 245,000 state workers, in part because, yeah, the rest of them are already required to be there. If you're a janitor, if you're working in a prison, if you're a firefighter, you know, custodial employees, I mentioned. So what Laura has been the policy since COVID? Like, is this something that has changed over the last six years or have they basically been in this holding pattern? Like, you can work remotely since 2020.

Yeah. So basically, I think it was around 22 or so when people started trickling back into work. And you have to remember before the pandemic, remote work was not a thing at all for state workers. It was completely, you know, not in congruence with the policy at the state level. And so. having to equip everybody to work from home during the pandemic was like really an effort the state had to undertake to be able to get people to do their jobs from home. So yeah, I think, you know, starting, you know, in 2022, people started coming back in a few days a week, two days a week. You know, the mandate up until this summer was two days a week in office. Of course, we know some departments are handling that differently than others. Some are still mostly working from home. Some are coming in five days a week. Just depending on department preferences. And do we know anything about productivity here? Like, has there been any studies or audits to show us if productivity has actually suffered? I mean, there was a state audit. last year that looked into at least the product, at least the cough savings piece of it. It said that going, you know, keeping remote work could save the state $225 million. More so on the office space, like not having to fill out office space. And they did, I believe, in that survey state workers about productivity in different departments and did not find that there was a huge drop off in productivity. I also think just beyond like the state workforce component of it, we should acknowledge that a big argument in favor of this is the local impact. Right. Like it's why this has become somewhat contentious. I saw the CEO of the Greater Sacramento Economic Council. compared SCIU's power in California to the NRA in Texas, basically saying that they're preventing Sacramento from having this like downtown recovery. So that is a big piece of it. The economic activity. that could potentially flow out of the fact that this is the town's business. Right. And we've seen, I mean, I just want to like put a point on this. We've seen pushback in the form of protest. We've seen, you know, SEIU 1,000, the largest state worker union is locked in these negotiations with, on their larger contract with the state. And this has become a sticking point. And we saw a lawsuit trying to use the state's Environmental Quality Act, which was thrown out by a judge. I just thought that was sort of a little rich given we're about to vote on sequel reform. Like that might be like the number one.

you know, thing that folks who want to reform that law could use to say like, this looks like an abuse. But, you know, let's talk about the bigger politics here because obviously our governor has higher political aspirations. He's looking at a potential 2028 run. And. I think this is like an interesting thing for him. Because on the one hand, to Guy's point, it's not just about saying like I can stand up to unions, which could be a double-edged sword and a Democratic primary. But I think it is about like what does California look like when you leave it, right? If there are all these cities struggling with downtowns that are empty and small businesses closing, like that's a consideration. And yet Greg Abbott in Texas, you know, probably his one of his most conservative counterparts, has a much more lax policy, Laura. So like, what is that all? I'll tell you. Yeah, I've been trying to figure out, too, like, why this hill is one that Gavin Newsom really seems willing to die on. To your point about do you want to be perceived as kind of being soft on productivity or, I mean, this was also like happening with all the federal like Doge, you know, efforts that we saw to kind of say, like, well, we're doing that here in California. You know, we are bringing people back in. We're being productive. We're getting our work done. And I think. that he just found this as like the easiest avenue to kind of push that angle. But to your point, guy, like, he's a small business owner and a dad. Yeah, I'll add that piece. Okay, so there's the state worker productivity. There's the local economy angle. I also think something important to him is the... Whole person loneliness thing that he's been really focused on with younger people, younger men. And this is a generational issue. Like Gallup did a survey on remote work and they found that the generation least likely to support fully remote work is Gen Z. So I think Gavin Newsom might be looking at this through the lens as someone who has younger kids and, you know, is looking at ways in which to kind of more fully engage that population in society. Look, a lot of people in Gen Z did not get to experience, you know, the way that we all experienced kind of in-person work before the pandemic. The flip side of that is once you get into millennials and Gen X, this really becomes a child care issue. And there's a reason why. And affordability issue. I mean, I really do have like empathy for both sides on this because like as somebody who's lived through this as a parent, it's like, yes. We have, you know, a lot of places, including our own work for a place, has been like, you do need to be back in the office a certain number of days a week. And it does increase cost. And it is, it does. Like I think it's a little simplistic for him to say, well, you know, five, six years ago, this would have been a win because the world has changed since COVID. And so I think you really like have to see both sides of this. I think there is a value in people being face to face. We're sitting here doing this interview face and it matters. So yeah, it'll be, it'll be definitely something to watch in his relationship broadly with unions as we approach 2028.

That was KQEDs, Marisa Lagos, and Guy Marsarotti talking with CAP Radio politics reporter Laura Fitzgerald. You can hear the rest of their conversation on the political breakdown podcast. I'm Natalia Navarro, KQED News. The latest will be back after this quick break. This episode is brought to you by Claude by Anthropic. Claude is the AI for minds that don't stop at good enough. It's the collaborator that actually understands your entire workflow and thinks with you. Whether you're debugging code at midnight or strategizing your next business move, Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems that matter and finds connections you might have missed. For problems worth solving, get started at clod.a.i slash Spotify. Parenting unlocks some pretty impressive skills, like carrying grocery bags, a soccer ball, and a sleepy kid all at once. Good thing the newly designed Chrysler Pacifica has a few tricks of its own. Hands free power sliding doors and lift gate, rear seat entertainment, and stow and go seating in storage that adapts faster than your family's weekend plans. Visit Chrysler.com to learn more. Chrysler is a registered trademark of FCAUS LLC. We're back with the latest. Let's turn to KQED's Forum team now for an in-depth look behind the headlines. Welcome to Forum. I'm Mina Kim. Here's how today's guest, Stephen Witt, in his piece for the New Yorker, describes Neo, the robot with a human-like form that's designed to obey commands and help you around the house. Neo stands 5 feet 6 and has no facial features, except for two black cameras in place of eyes. Its proportions are a blend of those of the median American male and those of the median American female. But Neo has no skin. Instead, it wears a beige nylon turtleneck body suit, gloves, and padded shoes over a see-through carapace. Under that is a skeleton made up of more than 100 whizzing motors and cord-like artificial tendons that control. Neo's limbs. Listeners, if this sounds futuristic, Neo is actually scheduled to ship to consumers before the end of the year. And Stephen Witt joins me now to talk about whether humanoid robots are ready to be deployed. Essentially the title of his New Yorker piece, Stephen, welcome to forum. Thank you for having me. So first, what was your reaction to seeing Neo at 1X technologies here in the Bay Area? You know, I had heard so much hype about this thing, and I just, I didn't believe it because they'd sort of gone dark for a while at 1X after pushing it in late December of last year. And then I saw it. And I was in its presence and I was just stunned. I mean, it felt like using the iPhone for the first time. It felt like using the internet for the first time. It just felt like some kind of technological watershed had been sort of crossed. Wow. I mean, the thing was just so well designed.

Then I got the opportunity to interact with it and use it a little bit. And some of those feelings faded because this robot, which looks amazing, I mean, it is just beautiful. It is not so competent. But it does talk back to you, you know, similar if you've been using AI to talking to AI. It's like that. And it does at least try to execute your voice commands. So it's pretty impressive. Yeah. Well, actually, we have a clip of Neo's voice. Let's hear it. Hey, I'm Neo. I'm here to help around the house. What's your name? I'm Harriet. Nice to meet you, Harry. When you have a question or want something done, just let me know. So because this is like a physical device, essentially it uses AI to translate what you're saying, not to answer back or respond back in text, but actually to do physical actions? Exactly. So if you've used AI to translate, maybe you've tried to translate from English into German, for example. The roboticists I've talked to said it's almost exactly the same for actions. They have a language of trajectories associated with the movement of joints. And it translates from English into this joint action language. So it's almost exactly the same thing as translating into a foreign language. But as you point out, there are still some kings to work out, right? So what is Neo able to do reasonably well? And what can it not do so well? It can definitely pick up something and put it somewhere else. So that it has mastered. It can kind of get you a glass of water, usually. I would say it has a decent success rate at that. It can fold a shirt, maybe. It cannot do your laundry, unassisted. Stairs remain a challenge for Neo. So if you have stairs in your house, it may or may not be able to get up them, and more likely not. And then more complex tasks, like, say, chop a vegetable or wash a dish are some distance away. This robot can't do that stuff. Yeah, and these more complex commands, there needs to be a human controlling Neo in real time. Right, like a teleoperator. So that meaning that Neo is at times as you write a marionette. Precisely, precisely. So if you wanted to say be a bartender, it's a I can't do that. It's just not there yet. But what you can do is throw it to a remote human teleoperator who controls Neo via a VR headset. Almost exactly like a puppet. I mean, it is a puppet. And when you have the remote human operator there, Neo becomes suddenly much more capable. Now, you'll know that this is happening because Neo has a little kind of light disc on the side of its head that lights up different colors. And one of those colors will indicate that it is, in fact, being human teleoperated. And so you'll have a guy in a VR headset seeing through Neo's eyes. and moving Neo's hands. I actually got the opportunity to try this myself with a different robot teleoperating it. It's kind of uncanny sensation. You can even have the robot come up behind you and tap yourself on the shoulder. Wow. So it's not so great at doing a bunch of things, and it does need somebody, you know,

manipulating Neo essentially to be able to do things around the house. And yet, Stephen, 10,000 people are ready to have a Neo in their home, right before the end of this year. They've put down that $20,000 or a deposit for a $20,000 Neo. Yeah, you know, there's a whole bunch of people that I found while reporting this article who have just dreamed about something like this since they were little kids. They have always wanted it. And I think I underestimated how strong that feeling was for some of them. The guy who designed this is a guy named Dar Sleeper. He's kind of the second in command at 1X, but he's their chief designer. And he told me, even when he was a kid, he would get so frustrated with his stuffed animals because they didn't do anything he wanted them to come to life he wanted them to move So I think there's a very particular kind of person who has just always looked forward to the day that they would have a robot in their home. I am not that kind of person. I don't share that feeling. But I was really shocked by the number of people from all over too, not just tech nerds, but even regular people who were like, yeah, I would see this in Star Wars. I would see this. in the Jetsons and just be obsessed with having one in my house. So at least at first, it's filling this very particular consumer niche. I think over time, as they become more useful, they will start to be seen much more broadly throughout homes everywhere. And these consumers are not weirded out by having someone peering into their homes, like all over their home through Neo's camera eyes. One customer I talked to said, look, you know, if I contacted a cleaning service, they would send a stranger into my house. I wouldn't vet that person at all. I'm actually less afraid of someone teleoperating a robot in my house than I am just inviting someone from TaskRabbit. So in some ways, these people are also sort of experimental. And so, you know, would 1X be using all the data that it collects from these initial consumers to help it teach, Neil? I mean, this is exactly the play, right? It's using data for consumers. It's also using data from the teleoperators. When the teleoperator moves, all of their joint trajectory information is recorded. And then the AI will train off that. In fact, these kind of motion capture approaches are the way that Neo is trained and most robots are trained. The guy who I said designed Neo, a guy named Dar Sleeper, he'd been a D1 lacrosse player. And he told me he had an anatomically perfect run in college. And so to teach Neo to walk, he put on a motion capture suit and moved around a motion capture studio. And Mio mimicked and learned from his movements.

This is the thing that's actually holding back robotics. If you think about something like ChatGPT, we have an enormous amount of English language data to train off of, and other languages as well. But there is no massive free repository of joint trajectory data. And so roboticists are aggressively trying to build that data set. That's the missing link. Wow. So there are people who, you know, have dreamed of this and so on. But there are also people who... are in robotics, robotics experts, really into this, that have also told you that they're not really sure that Neo is ready for prime time? What have they told you? They're just not that safe robots. I mean, you can be tricked, especially by humanoid robots, because they look like humans and you think they're going to have human capabilities, and you think they're going to be, you know, sort of responsive in the way that humans are. But at the end, there actually are autonomous machines that just look like a human, but don't respond. in the way that humans do or at least not yet you know there's a there's a video out there of another robot from unitary a g1 it's four foot six and they taught it to do a fun little martial arts routine but while it's doing it it actually kicked a small kid in the stomach Is the kid okay? He was hurt. I mean, I think he wasn't hospitalized, but it wasn't safe. And this is the case of a lot of these robots. And so some of the robotists I talked to, especially those with familiarity with more industrial deployments of robots, really did not think what 1X is doing is safe. Now, 1X is pushback is we've made our robot safe. It's very soft. It can only move so fast. Its joints are just limited in terms. It's not very strong. It can only lift 15 pounds. And it's very lightweight. It only weighs 60 pounds or so. I was able to pick it up quite easily in a bridal carry, even though it's almost as tall as me. So they believe that this is safe. But even one X is like, don't, don't let this robot interact around small children. Interesting. Well, Rick and Citrus Heist writes, as a person with vision loss, the only thing I would need a robot to do at home would be to clean my hard floors and my rugs. Could you do this? Rug cleaning is a little ways away because it would need to use one of those rug shampoers. Cleaning its floors? Sure, Rick. I think a robot can clean your floors today. But this is the question. If that's all you need it for, if that's all you want it for, do you even need a humanoid? Maybe you just need a simpler kind of robot, like a Roomba or a little broom robot. And this was a big debate that came up a lot while reporting this article. Why are we building humanoids for kind of these single purpose tasks? It's like we have a self-driving car. the car drives itself, we don't need to build a robotic chauffeur to sit in the driver's seat. You know what I mean? Yeah. So do we actually need a robot to sweep the broom or do we just want like a fantasia style kind of like self-operating broom? And so this debate came up a lot. How did Dio's creator? Yeah, go ahead. For people like Rick with vision impairment or for people who are getting older, these robots are going to be a huge market. I mean, they're just going to be so helpful around the house.

In 10 years. Today, it's less clear. So a lot of folks are just intrigued by, you know, sort of seeing an early version of essentially what's to come. I think you quoted what is saying. The customer I talked to said, look, I'm not expecting a perfectly polished product. And in fact, Neo has made it pretty clear that they're not shipping a perfectly polished product. Onex has been clear about that. They have been clear that, you know, this robot has some limitations. But it's going to get smarter. While you have it in your house, every week they're going to update the AI. And it's going to get smarter and smarter. And the early kind of like growing pains will start to go away. It'll be like adopting a puppy or adopting a child. This is for them. I'm Mina Kim. There's a lot more forum for you to hear. Just look for the show wherever you listen to this podcast. That's the latest from KQED, but remember we're updating throughout the day, so come back anytime. The latest is powered by the newsroom at member-supported KQED in San Francisco and is made by me, Dana Kronin, Srishti Prabha and Bianca Taylor, with support from Jen Chien, Ted Goldberg, Keith Miziguchi, and Katie Springer. Some members of the KQED podcast team are represented by the Screen Actors Guild, American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, San Francisco, Northern California Local. Thanks for listening. Hey, it's Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. Now, I was looking for fun ways to tell you that Mint's offer of unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month is back. So I thought it would be fun if we made $15 bills. But it turns out that's very illegal. So there goes my big idea for the commercial. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. Up front payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months, or $180 for 12-month plan required. $15 per month equivalent. Taxes and fees extra. Initial plan term only greater than 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. See terms. Uncovered windows can make your home feel up to 20 degrees hotter. Stay cool and save up to 45% off custom window treatments during the summer Black Friday mega sale at blinds.com. From outdoor shades to room darkening blinds, finding the perfect fit is easy. Get free samples, expert design help, and professional measure and install services, or DIY with confidence and support every step of the way. Shop up to 45% off site wide, plus huge savings on doorbusters right now during the summer Black Friday mega sale at blinds.com. Ready to transform your career in real time from where you are? Brown University's flexible online master's programs will help expand your business influence and your network in just 16 months. Choose from management, business analytics, or organizational leadership programs that will prepare you for today's most pressing business challenges without putting your life on hold. Scholarships available. Tap to learn more.