Who Owns the Machine? Reflections on Neo, AI, and the Meaning of Autonomy
At the end of October 2025, 1X Technologies' humanoid robot Neo swept through the tech world like a heatwave. This sleek robot, backed by OpenAI, is touted as the first truly home-friendly physical assistant.
Priced at around $20,000 or $499 per month for leasing, Neo can clean, carry items, and even learn new tasks through imitation. In just a few days, it became the internet's focal point — seemingly, a tireless family companion has finally arrived.
Yet, behind the cheers, a profound reflection on "autonomy" quietly unfolds. Remote control offers the illusion of convenience, but it exposes a core pain point in the AI industry: human operators still lurk in the shadows, and what happens to your privacy data?
As Curious CEO David Tomasian puts it:
"True autonomy is the only way machines can belong to us."
An Illusion: The Myth of Humanoid Robot "Autonomy"
Neo's launch is indeed exhilarating: standing 5 feet 6 inches tall and weighing 66 pounds, it uses tendon-driven actuators mimicking human muscles, wrapped in a soft shell for safety. Hugging Face co-founder Thomas Wolf exclaimed on X that Neo has "advanced" his timeline for home robot adoption.
In demos, Neo waters plants, opens doors, washes clothes, and scrubs dishes, turning mundane chores into something poetic and efficient.
But this excitement was quickly doused by reality. The Wall Street Journal's hands-on report reveals that many of Neo's movements are still remotely controlled in real time by "experts" via VR.
This isn't sci-fi — it's the current state of AI, where remote piloting aids companies in training models through imitation and reinforcement learning, yet reduces the robot from "independent helper" to "human extension."
Tomasian sharply notes that under this model, your "private robot" isn't truly private: it not only observes your life but uploads data to the cloud, fueling the manufacturer's training.
When a robot can "see" your home layout, recognize your voice, and analyze your habits — yet remains tethered to the manufacturer's servers — who does it really belong to?
From Factory to Home: The Privacy Cost Beneath Autonomy
The wave of humanoid robots is flowing from factories to living rooms. Figure AI's Figure 02 and Tesla's Optimus aim to reshape industry, while Neo pushes the vision into consumer territory — not just productivity, but companionship itself.
This trend is especially urgent in elderly care. Pilot projects in Japan, Korea, and parts of Europe are testing robots for assisting daily activities, monitoring health, and providing emotional support. But Tomasian points out: "The difference between aid and true care lies in understanding context and emotion." If data isn't encrypted and stored locally, "the robot isn't yours—it's someone else's lens."
Privacy expert Kohei Kurihara disclosed on X that Neo users must sign a waiver allowing manufacturers access to certain operational data. This "tech-for-convenience" pact hides cracks in trust. A Medium article bluntly states that this $20,000 robot "needs a human babysitter", with complex tasks requiring an appointment for "expert mode," making users feel like they're renting a "surveilled puppet."
Tomasian emphasizes that for embodied intelligence to evolve like language models, three things are essential: on-device reasoning, multimodal understanding, and encrypted autonomy. AI must not just execute commands but comprehend "why" they are given, ensuring data sovereignty belongs to the user. True care reliability stems from security and privacy, not algorithmic complexity. In other words, autonomy isn't just a technical issue — it's a social contract: Machines should embody trust, not extend surveillance.
From Embodied to Digital: AI Agents' Lessons on Autonomy
Neo's controversy reflects a deeper trend: "Autonomy" isn't confined to mechanical limbs — it's also about digital intelligence. Rather than teaching robots in your living room how to wash dishes, why not have agents on the network learn to "act on your behalf"?
AI Agents are the extension of this direction. They're not humanoid replicas but digital extensions of human will — capable of executing tasks, making decisions, and completing transactions on behalf of users, with data ownership retained by the individual.
IBM's "2025 AI Agent Report" states that Agentic AI promises an 8x productivity boost, hinging on autonomous reasoning combined with privacy protection.
Google Cloud research shows 52% of enterprises using generative AI have deployed AI Agents.
Deloitte predicts half of companies will enable Agentic AI by 2027.
Gartner forecasts that within four years, agents will autonomously handle 15% of daily decisions.
This shift redefines "autonomy": no longer machines mimicking human limbs, but agents learning to represent human intent.
XWorld: A Real-World Experiment in "Machines Belonging to People"
Amid this trend, the XWorld platform's explorations stand out. Since its 2023 launch, it has built a self-sustaining "agent economy" by combining AI training with token incentives: users can create, deploy, and monetize their own AI Agents. The integration of stablecoins makes settlements lower-friction, ensuring value flows under user control.
Today, XWorld boasts over 11 million downloads and 1 million monthly actives in its Telegram MiniApp ecosystem, with cumulative token trading volume exceeding $34.7 million.
Here, autonomy is no illusion — it's a reality co-built by users, developers, and agents: machines not only execute instructions but become "intelligence we own."
Epilogue: Who Truly Owns the Machines?
Neo reminds us: when "autonomy" becomes a selling point, oversight and trust must evolve in tandem.
The future shown by the AI Agent industry offers another possibility:
Machines are no longer just used, but truly "owned";
They no longer serve the network, but human will and data sovereignty.
XWorld's experiment may provide the answer: when "agent autonomy" merges with "user ownership," machines finally begin to belong to us.
In the future, when robots no longer need human eyes, that may be humanity's true liberation.
🔗 Learn more and join XWorld
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Complete Guide to Earning Free Crypto in 2023
The last couple of years have marked an increase in the overall public awareness of cryptocurrencies worldwide. In return, a larger number of people have expressed their interest in purchasing or earning digital currencies.
While buying your favorite coin via an exchange is likely the easiest way to enter the cryptocurrency market, this industry is full of surprises — therefore a noticeable amount of coin can be earned for free.
As such, this article offered by XWORLD will cover the main methods that can be leveraged in order to obtain free crypto. Do keep in mind that most of these methods require a bit of effort, since nothing is ever truly free. However, these methods do not entail having to work a fulltime job, nor do they imply any monetary investment from your part.
Free Crypto from Coinbase Earn
Coinbase is largely seen as one of the most popular digital currency exchanges, especially in the United States.
While the platform facilitates the purchase and sale of crypto, it also offers its users the opportunity to earn several coins, including but not limited to Orchid, Tezos, Dai, EOS, Stellar, Zcash, Basic Attention Token and Ox.
For example, at the moment you can earn the following cryptos for free:
Orchid: users can earn up to $52 OXT by completing a free course meant to teach you the basics of this privacy-focused coin;
Tezos: completing a course on Tezos and learning about its openness, safety or upgradability will earn you $6 XTZ;
Dai: a similar course-based offer is available for Dai as well, thus granting course participants $20 DAI;
EOS: you can earn up to $50 EOS by completing a course on this coin, and learning more about its goal of facilitating the development of blockchain-based apps;
Stellar Lumens: the completion of a quick course on how Stellar connects payment systems, banks and individuals will earn you $50 XLM;
Zcash: this coin is known for its privacy-focused philosophy — course completion will grant you an undisclosed amount of ZEC tokens;
Basic Attention Token: $8-worth of BAT can be earned by reading on BAT’s vision of fixing the web;
0x: last but not least, educating yourself on OX’s token-based idea of the future web will award you several ZRX tokens.
Do keep in mind that there is a catch to these courses. You must be the holder of a Coinbase exchange account, where all tokens will be credited.
Earning Free Crypto via Airdrops
Airdrops are one of the simplest and most effective methods of earning extra cryptocurrency, especially in the form of newly-announced tokens. The idea behind airdrops is quite simple — innovative and newly-launched projects choose to hold airdrops as an effective marketing strategy, meant to pique the interest of the cryptocurrency community.
Participating in an airdrop is bound to be quite simple. It entails owning an active Ethereum wallet that is ERC-20 compatible, an email address, Telegram account, and in some cases, a Twitter account.
Once these criteria are met, you will have to look for Initial Coin Offerings (ICOs), Security Token Offerings (STOs), and token-based start-ups that have announced an upcoming airdrop.
Most of these platforms will require you to sign-up, by entering your ERC-20 address and email.
For marketing purposes, some airdrops may require you to follow them on Twitter, or join the Telegram chat group. This ensures that you’re kept in the loop and quickly become aware of news concerning the token.
Recently, KYC&AML regulations have made it mandatory for numerous airdrops to request identifying details. This is due to the money laundering potential associated with these events. Therefore, if you’re keen on protecting your online privacy, airdrops might not be the best choice for you.
Recently, numerous wallet providers such as Blockchain.com have started sponsoring airdrops.
In other words, you are announced whenever a partner start-up is holding an airdrop of their new tokens, and can earn the tokens directly in your wallet. Similarly, there are numerous websites which scour the web looking for new airdrop events. Following will help ensure that you will be one of the first people to know about upcoming airdrops.
Leveraging Bounties for Free Coin
Bounties are quite similar to airdrops, in the sense that they represent free coins given away by crypto project developers. There’s one key difference, however — bounties generally imply that you do some type of work in exchange for the coin.
With this in mind, here are the main types of bounties, alongside a quick description for each:
Bug bounties
Bug bounty campaigns are generally well-paid, yet they are only relevant to people who hold development skills. Programmers throughout the world actively attempt to crack the code of online platforms, while also testing for potential bugs.
As such, crypto and blockchain-based companies may hold bounty campaigns, where developers analyse platform functionality and report any bugs.
Over the last couple of years, there have been numerous instances in which white-hat hackers discovered vulnerabilities or significant bugs in web platforms. In return for this service, and based on the severity of the vulnerability discovered, companies can offer tens of thousands of dollars as compensation.
Signature campaigns
This marketing strategy is often implemented on forums such as Bitcointalk. In exchange for a monthly bounty, forum users add a specific signature, thus indirectly promoting the products and services of a crypto company.
Most businesses holding signature campaigns require forum users to have a higher membership level, which can be obtained through frequent high-quality posts. In return for buying the signature space, companies offer a monthly bounty in tokens.
Translations
Crypto start-ups are always interested in having their content translated into multiple languages. Since many start-ups run on a limited budget, a good method to go about this is to launch a translation bounty. Here, native users translate specific portions of text, in exchange for a number of tokens.
Social media, images, blog posts and video bounties
Last but not least, we also have other promotional bounties. Some companies may ask you to write and post a positive article on their services, whereas others may require you to edit videos, share posts on social media, or create promotional images.
Based on these aspects, bounties do, in fact, represent a method of earning free tokens, yet they imply actual work. Luckily, the work is generally quite easy (apart from bug bounties), and can be completed rather quickly.
Affiliate Marketing and Referrals
At this point in time, most experts define affiliate marketing as the process associated with promoting products and services of various companies, in exchange for a commission on each sale.
A recent research study concluded that US-based affiliate spending may reach $6.8 billion by the end of 2020.
As such, affiliate marketing represents a significant revenue stream for numerous companies, especially those which operate in the online ecosystem.
Therefore, it only makes sense that numerous crypto and blockchain-related businesses have launched their very own affiliate marketing campaigns. Getting involved is bound to be simple — in most instances, you need an account, and a personalized link, which can be shared across the web.
Any service or product that is purchased using your affiliate link or referral code will be credited with a percentage of the sale.
Affiliate marketing can earn you free cryptocurrency as long as you are active online. This implies sharing the link as part of valuable content on a variety of platforms, such as crypto discussion forums, Reddit, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or your personal blog.
The possibilities are endless. Your success depends directly on the size of your audience and your overall online reach. However, this means that actual work needs to be carried out in order to get this free crypto. On the other hand, once your links are live, affiliate marketing becomes a lucrative source of passive income, which can be leveraged for a prolonged period of time.
To put things into perspective, here are several crypto-related affiliate campaigns:
Coinbase: if new users sign up using your personalized affiliate link, you are eligible to obtain 50% of the fees charged by the exchange platform for all transactions;
TREZOR: this platform offers 10% of net sales carried out by users who have signed up using your referral;
Ledger: this affiliate program promises to credit 12% — 15% of all sales;
LocalBitcoins: you can expect to earn 20% of the trading fee associated with each transaction that is carried out by referred users;
Binance: this exchange platform offers 20%-40% commissions on transaction fees.
Do keep in mind the fact that these conditions may be modified unilaterally by the website. Therefore, it is always recommended that you carry out your due diligence, and carefully research the affiliate marketing conditions associated with each of the examples given above.
Additionally, note that this list isn’t exhaustive — in fact, there are hundreds of crypto-related affiliate opportunities on the market at this moment.
It certainly isn’t unusual for affiliate marketing to become a main income stream, especially if done right. People have reported earning hundreds of thousands of dollars monthly using affiliate marketing strategies.
Given the fact that we are referring to the digital currency market, your income potential is further increased by crypto price volatility.
However, this entails that you treat it as a fulltime job until enough of your links are published on the web.
Earn BTC/ETH/PEPE etc. in XWORLD
Play Games and Earn: In XWORLD, you have the opportunity to play any games you love and earn rewards in the form of token BUILD. Whether you enjoy action-packed adventures, strategic puzzles, or immersive simulations, there’s a game for everyone. The more you play, the more BUILD tokens you accumulate, bringing you one step closer to earning Bitcoin, ETH, or PEPE.
Complete Quests and Challenges: XWORLD offers a variety of quests and challenges that test your skills and reward your efforts. By successfully completing these quests, you can earn additional BUILD tokens. Engage in thrilling missions, solve mysteries, or conquer difficult obstacles to unlock valuable rewards. The harder the challenge, the greater the potential for earning Bitcoin, ETH, or PEPE.
Join PvP Competitions: Are you a competitive gamer? XWORLD provides exciting player-versus-player (PvP) competitions where you can showcase your skills and earn rewards. Participate in thrilling battles against other players, climb the leaderboards, and emerge victorious. As you progress in PvP, you’ll earn BUILD tokens, which can be invested in the dividend pool to earn Bitcoin, ETH, or PEPE.
Invest in the Dividend Pool: XWORLD offers a unique opportunity to invest your earned BUILD tokens in the dividend pool. By contributing to the pool, you become eligible to receive a share of the dividends, which include Bitcoin, ETH, or PEPE. The more BUILD tokens you invest, the higher your potential earnings. It’s a smart way to grow your cryptocurrency portfolio while enjoying the immersive gaming experience XWORLD has to offer.
Reap the Rewards: As you accumulate BUILD tokens and invest in the dividend pool, you’ll start reaping the rewards in the form of Bitcoin, ETH, or PEPE. Watch your cryptocurrency holdings grow as you continue to engage with XWORLD’s games, quests, and PvP competitions. It’s an exciting and rewarding journey where your passion for gaming can translate into tangible digital assets.
Keep an Eye Out for Scams
Over the last couple of years, the popularity of the cryptocurrency market has increased exponentially. The rise in public awareness was mostly fuelled by intense volatility, and record-breaking prices.
With this in mind, the market is still seen as a way to get rich quickly. While there is significant money-making potential in crypto, this perception has led to the appearance of numerous scams, meant to fraud people out of their money.
Whenever dealing in crypto, there are two aspects worth keeping in mind: if an offer sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Also, you should never risk more than you can afford to lose.
Cybersecurity practices dictate that it’s best to always carry out in-depth research on any platform or service that you decide to use. Similarly, you should never give out your personal details or private keys to third parties.
Protection against scams and other forms of fraudulent activity is basically non-existent, whereas transactions are irreversible, therefore due diligence is essential.
Remember, XWORLD is not just a gaming platform; it’s a gateway to earning valuable cryptocurrencies. So, jump into the world of XWORLD, play your favorite games, complete quests, join PvP battles, earn BUILD tokens, and invest wisely to unlock the potential of earning Bitcoin, ETH, or PEPE. Start your journey today and experience the thrill of earning crypto while doing what you love.
Testnet has been launched in Southeast Asia.
Download: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=pro.xworld.app
Join the XWORLD Community
Ready to explore the limitless possibilities of XWORLD? Visit the official website, follow XWORLD on Twitter (@xworld_pro) to stay updated on the latest news, releases, and opportunities. Don’t miss out on this exciting revolution in gaming and beyond!
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Enjoy Your Passionate Game Time, Every Second Becomes Your Income.
New Feature: Agent Liquidity Mining Is LIVE!
XWorld is excited to unveil Agent Liquidity Mining — a brand-new mechanism to reward long-term holders and strengthen the ecosystem!
🌊 What Is Liquidity Mining?
By pairing your Agent Token with an equal amount of $WORLD, you can add liquidity and enjoy multiple rewards:
🔹 Up to 40% Annualized Yield
Rewards grow with time — the longer you stay in, the higher the APR (up to 40% after 12 months).
🔹 Earn Transaction Fees
Earn a share of trading fees generated from the liquidity pool, based on your contribution ratio.
🔹 Flexible Management
Create, partially withdraw, or fully remove your liquidity at any time. Unclaimed rewards will be automatically collected when you withdraw.
💡 Reward Details
Annualized Yield (APR)
Distributed monthly on the 1st (UTC+0) in off-chain $WORLD.
Yield increases linearly each month, up to a maximum of 40% APR.
Transaction Fees
Can be claimed manually at any time (gas fees apply), or automatically upon full withdrawal.
📌 Who Can Join?
For the best user experience, liquidity mining is only available to AI Agents with a market cap ≥ $1.5M
Trying to join early? You'll see this message:
"To ensure optimal functionality, liquidity mining is only open to AI Agents with a market cap of 2M or higher".
🛠 Feature Highlights
Access the feature directly via your Agent Details Page
Create positions with just a few clicks
View total position value, real-time APR, and unclaimed rewards
Sort and manage multiple liquidity positions with ease
All actions (add/remove/claim) supported with secure on-chain confirmation
🧪 Why This Matters
This is a key step in our mission to:
✅ Encourage long-term holding
✅ Boost liquidity and token stability
✅ Reward our early believers and ecosystem contributors
Agent Liquidity Mining is a smart move to earn rewards while strengthening the ecosystem.
Let your Agent work smarter, join now and make the most of your $WORLD!
🔗 Learn more and join XWorld
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