The Download: gig workers training humanoids, and better AI benchmarks | MIT Technology Review

This is today's edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what's going on in the world of technology. The gig workers who are training humanoid robots at home  When Zeus, a medical student in Nigeria, returns to his apartment from a long day at the hospital, he straps his iPhone to his forehead and records himself doing chores.  Zeus is a data recorder for Micro1, which sells the data he collects to robotics firms. As these companies race to build humanoids, videos from workers like Zeus have become the hottest new way to train them.   Micro1 has hired thousands of them in more than 50 countries, including India, Nigeria, and Argentina. The jobs pay well locally, but raise thorny questions around privacy and informed consent. The work can be challenging—and weird. Read the full story.  —Michelle Kim  Our readers recently voted humanoid robots the "11th breakthrough" to add to our 2026 list of 10 Breakthrough Technologies. Check out what else officially made the cut.  AI benchmarks are broken. Here’s what we need instead.  For decades, AI has been evaluated based on whether it can outperform humans on isolated problems. But it’s seldom used this way in the real world.  While AI is assessed in a vacuum, it operates in messy, complex, multi-person environments over time. This misalignment leads us to misunderstand its capabilities, risks, and impacts.  We need new benchmarks that assess AI’s performance over longer horizons within human tea...