Physical AI Developers Mine Real-World Footage to Train Robots

Robotics companies are systematically capturing video from homes, offices, and factories to build training datasets for "physical AI"—a recognition that simulation alone cannot teach machines the messy variability of real environments. This data collection strategy avoids the traditional cost of expensive, controlled robot experiments. The tradeoff: privacy friction and regulatory risk are deferred to the deployment phase, when systems are already in production.