Intro
The Economist's daily news show runs three stories. China business and finance editor Don Weinland reports from the World Humanoid Robot Games in Beijing and from inside a robot training center in Wuhan; U.S. business editor Alice Fulwood takes apart Meta's settlement with 29 states over teen social media use; and culture editor Alexandra Suich Bass visits Shakespeare and Company in Paris, 75 years after George Whitman opened it under another name.
Host: Rosie Blau
Also on: Don Weinland, The Economist's China business and finance editor; Alice Fulwood, The Economist's U.S. business editor and host of its Money Talks podcast; Alexandra Suich Bass, The Economist's culture editor; Sylvia Whitman, owner of Shakespeare and Company
Published: 28 August 2026 on The Intelligence
Episode page | 25 min
Key Takeaways
Chinese companies will probably sell around 50,000 humanoid robots this year, triple last year's figure
Weinland's caveat: the machines are costly and, for now, capable of very little
A humanoid beat Usain Bolt's 100 meter record at the Beijing games, then ran into a wall
Other robots crashed and fell during the games, and one caught fire
Training a genuinely useful humanoid may take 100 million hours of real-world data
"That's more than 11,000 years of data" — Don Weinland
China has already built 53 robot training centers and has 34 more planned
The one Weinland visited fits about 100 humanoids; a Shanghai center under construction will fit 1,000, and a small city nearby is building six
The training centers are themselves a key source of demand for the robots
The industry runs on the promise of better machines later, not on what today's can do
JD.com is recruiting 100,000 of its own staff and 500,000 outsiders to record movement data
If the operation works, 10 million hours of real-world data within two years
Meta settled with 29 states for at least $12 billion and as much as $17 billion over 10 years
The trial ran five days and ended before Zuckerberg took the stand; the states had sought up to $200 billion
Teen accounts get a two-hour daily cap across Facebook and Instagram
Plus a midnight-to-6 a.m. blackout, no notifications from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. or during school hours, hidden like counts and an optional chronological feed
The fine is not in big tobacco's order of magnitude
"Meta is being fined, at maximum, about 10% of its revenue last year" — Alice Fulwood
The settlement is the template for deals with TikTok, YouTube and Snap
Trigger clauses hold the states to $12 billion unless they win similar settlements elsewhere, and tighten the blackout hours if they do
Pennsylvania's attorney general has already sued Snapchat, and the stock fell about 8%
Tobacco's shareholders did fine after the settlement that was supposed to destroy the industry
Altria returned 36 times an investor's money from 2000, against about eight times for the S&P 500
Shakespeare and Company draws two to three thousand visitors a day and bans photography inside
Suich Bass calls the ban good social media strategy, because it enhances the shop's mystique
Robots Boxing, Powerlifting and Catching Fire in Beijing
The World Humanoid Robot Games took place in Beijing this week, which Weinland describes as the Olympic Games with robots in the place of athletes
The events included powerlifting, boxing, football and running
"At one of these races, a humanoid called Tiangong Ultra beat Usain Bolt’s 100 meter sprint record. So it was able to do this in 9.39 seconds" — Don Weinland
The same robot crashed into a wall after the finish; others crashed and fell during the games, and one caught fire
What the games actually demonstrate is industrial rather than athletic: China is at the forefront of the humanoid robotics industry
Companies in the country will probably sell around 50,000 humanoids this year, triple the figure of last year
Weinland's caveat is that these are costly machines that can do very little today, and that robots washing dishes and cooking dinner remain a long way off
Why Picking Up a Glass of Water Is the Hard Part
On why robots are harder than chatbots: chatbots can be taught to communicate by scanning lots of digital text and reading the internet, and Weinland says robots are much more complicated
Picking up a glass of water means knowing not to squeeze hard enough to shatter it, and knowing how water moves when you lift it — things a person does without thinking
Humanoids have to be trained to understand all of that, and to carry out tasks safely
"It’s thought that we might need to collect something like 100 million hours of data from the real world in order to train robots. That’s more than 11,000 years of data" — Don Weinland
Blau's response is that nobody is going to wait 11,000 years, and she asks how robot makers plan to bridge the gap
Weinland's own conclusion is that the industry is really far away from collecting enough data to make humanoid robots smart
Two Kinds of Training Data, and the Centers Built for One of Them
The highest quality data is generally considered to be real-time machine data, which requires a humanoid physically present with the trainer
As the robot moves it records its movements, and that data can then be used in other robots
Egocentric data needs no robot at all: people put on headsets and gloves, sometimes suits and boots with sensors in them, and move around
That movement is recorded too, and can be applied to robotic movement
China is quickly becoming the front runner in real machine data, gathered at facilities it calls robot training centers
"I’ve been trying for months to get into one of these places. No one would let me in" — Don Weinland, on the robot training centers
Weinland and a colleague eventually got into one in Wuhan, the Hubei Humanoid Innovation Center
From the curb it looks like the big tech centers built in virtually every big city in China; inside, he says, you are suddenly in a different world
"The first thing I saw was a young man pouring coffee. And actually, he wasn’t pouring coffee. It was the robot next to him that was pouring coffee, but he was making the hand gestures" — Don Weinland
The floor is laid out as a series of stations — a small room designed to look like a grocery store, then a pharmacy, then a factory with a factory line
Each station has a robot-human duo, with the human teaching the robot to stock a shelf or pick up a box that has fallen on the ground
53 Centers Built, 34 Planned, and a Cost That Compounds
Asked whether it is working, Weinland's answer is that China is really good at scaling things up, and that on training centers it is doing very, very well
It has already built 53 of them and has 34 more being planned
The center Weinland visited could fit about 100 humanoids; one being built in Shanghai right now can fit 1,000
A city not far from Shanghai, and not a big city, is building six of them on its own
"a humanoid can cost up to $15,000 a piece. Then you need this training process. This costs anywhere from 500 to 700 yuan per hour" — Don Weinland
Set against the 100 million hours of training data the industry needs, Weinland says the costs are incredible
JD.com's Answer: 100,000 Staff, 500,000 Outsiders and a Set of Sensor Gloves
Egocentric collection — people in headsets and gloves pretending to work, or doing real work, while their movements are recorded — is happening at a pretty wide scale in China right now
JD.com said it is recruiting a hundred thousand of its own staff and five hundred thousand people outside the company to put on the gear
Weinland reads that as evidence that Chinese companies are actively hunting for other ways of collecting data
If the operation succeeds over the next two years, JD may be able to collect 10 million hours of real-world data, which Weinland calls quite an achievement
Who Buys a Robot That Can't Do Much
Blau puts it to Weinland that the process sounds very slow and very expensive, with results that are not brilliant, and asks who is buying the 50,000 robots
A lot of them go to the training centers — and Weinland says the training centers are a key source of demand for the robots
"the only reason why they are being bought and sold is because there’s a promise of better robots in the future" — Don Weinland
That promise, he says, is what is driving the industry forward right now
The Endgame, and Why 1995 Is the Wrong Year to Ask
Blau asks what the droids are ultimately for
Weinland can imagine a humanoid that cleans the house 24 hours a day, serves food and takes care of the cat or dog, but thinks that is pretty far off
His frame is the smartphone in the mid-2000s rather than the product on sale today
"if somebody asked you, do you want a small TV that goes in your pocket, in 1995, you might say no" — Don Weinland
Seeing where the industry is going, he concedes, still takes a little bit of imagination
Meta Settles With 29 States Five Days Into the Trial
The show opens the segment outside a courthouse in California, where parents spoke of their grief over how they say their lives had been ripped apart by the actions of Meta
Blau's setup: 29 states teamed up against the company, claiming both that the platform harmed children and that Meta knew the damaging effects
The trial lasted just five days and finished before Mark Zuckerberg took the stand; on Wednesday it reached a $17 billion settlement
"2026 has been a pretty miserable year for Meta in court" — Alice Fulwood
It lost a couple of small but very high-profile cases earlier in the year, all of which she says paled in comparison to the trial that began on August 18th
The consortium of 29 states was seeking up to $200 billion in damages, alleging that Meta perpetuated harm against young people and that it knew it
The settlement has two parts, money and product restrictions. Meta pays at least $12 billion and as much as $17 billion in damages over the next 10 years
Two Hours a Day, a Midnight Blackout and a 2010-Style Feed
Meta has to build new processes to pinpoint the age of all users, using more data and more markers to assess how old people are
Everyone it believes is under 18 faces restrictions on how much time they spend and how they use the platform
Total time across Facebook and Instagram together is capped at two hours a day
There is a blackout period from midnight to 6 a.m., and the company may not send those users notifications from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m., nor during school hours
Software restrictions govern what teens see: how many likes a post gets will be hidden from them, along with other things that could be used for social comparison
Teens also get the option to switch out of the algorithm-based feed into a 2010-style chronological feed, showing photos in order from accounts they follow or friends
Not a Tobacco-Sized Fine
Fulwood's read on the coverage is that the $17 billion headline has drawn comparisons to big tobacco, and that the settlement is not even in the same order of magnitude
In the 90s the tobacco companies were fined the total size of their market capitalization combined — a $200 billion settlement roughly equal to the value of those companies
"Meta is being fined, at maximum, about 10% of its revenue last year, about an eighth of the total amount it plans to spend on things like capex on data centers this year" — Alice Fulwood
The question she finds more interesting is whether the product changes make the platforms less addictive and less compulsive for teens
She thinks some of the restrictions Meta agreed to are pretty limiting
She is waiting to see how effective the new age verification processes turn out to be
Most interesting to her is the feed switch, and how many teens actually opt into the 2010-style version of Instagram
The Template for TikTok, YouTube and Snap
"This settlement, I think you should think of it as essentially the template, the outline for how deals with other social media companies are going to be brokered" — Alice Fulwood
The deal carries trigger clauses: the states can only collect $12 billion unless they secure similar settlements against the other social media companies, at which point the fine bumps up to the $17 billion maximum
Some of the restrictions tighten on the same condition — the Facebook and Instagram blackout would run from 10 p.m. to 7 a.m. rather than midnight to 6 a.m. if settlements are reached elsewhere
The states therefore have an incentive to go after TikTok, YouTube, Snap and the rest, and Fulwood says they are already getting to work
Shortly after the settlement was announced, Pennsylvania's attorney general said it is suing Snapchat over the risks its design poses to minors
Snapchat's stock fell by about 8%
What Is Still Coming, in the U.S. and Abroad
Blau's point is that this is just the US, and a lot of countries are already looking at how teens use social media
Fulwood agrees: the biggest settlement Meta has brokered with anyone yet is still just the tip of the iceberg
Australia banned young people from social media last year, and similar laws have been considered in France, although they are not going ahead at the moment
Inside the US, some states are still pursuing individual cases or trying to broker other settlements with Meta
Thousands of personal injury lawsuits have been filed, similar to the California case, and more than a thousand school districts have also sued the firm
Early trials for those cases are probably going ahead in February next year
Why Altria's Shareholders Did Fine After Big Tobacco Settled
Fulwood finds the tobacco analogy appealing on the merits: a potentially addictive product supposed to perpetuate harm to users, litigated around the question of how much the companies knew
The lawsuits against social media companies were constructed the same way the big tobacco cases were built
The tobacco settlement was considered potentially industry destroying at the time, and smoking rates have declined substantially since — but the companies themselves have done very well
"if you’d invested in Altria in 2000, so a couple of years after the settlement, you would have made 36 times your money, whereas putting it in the S&P 500 would have just been about eight times" — Alice Fulwood
She sees the same possibility at Meta, which is still fantastically profitable, and reads the market as unbothered by the settlement
Shakespeare and Company at 75, and the Myths Told Out Front
Suich Bass opens on the lore around Shakespeare and Company, the storied English language bookstore on the left bank of the Seine, which she calls fascinating
"we often hear guides who are out front in front of the bookshop giving a completely imaginative version of the history" — Sylvia Whitman, owner of Shakespeare and Company
The version the guides give includes the claim that Sylvia Plath started the shop
Whitman's father George, a lover of stories, founded it 75 years ago this month under a different name, Le Mistral; it is now one of the most famous bookstores in the world
He renamed it Shakespeare & Company after the shop Sylvia Beach founded in 1919 — she published Ulysses when everyone else thought it was obscene, and was friends with writers such as Ernest Hemingway
Legend has it that Beach gave him permission to adopt the name after her own shop closed down, and he named his daughter Sylvia
Whitman says her father encouraged some of the myths himself, especially the claim that Walt Whitman was his grandfather, which she used to tell him was a lie
His father was in fact called Walt Whitman: "it’s not my fault that they get the wrong Walt", he told her
No Photos Inside, and Why That Is Good Social Media Strategy
Two to three thousand people visit the shop a day, about one million a year; it has appeared in many films and people still queue to get in, even in hot weather
A visitor from Surrey who used to live in the US told Suich Bass she had come to see a historic building and buy some books, and cited the old and nostalgic vibe and the photos inside that you cannot see online
"Photos and videos are prohibited inside, which is actually a good social media strategy because it enhances the shop’s mystique" — Alexandra Suich Bass
People want to see what they cannot necessarily see on social media
The shop sells a story alongside the book: buyers are offered a stamp inside their book showing where it came from, and the shelves carry luxurious hardbacks and classics
It also sells merchandise such as tote bags, and hosts events that bring famous writers in
The formula is close to impossible to copy — a unique history, and a location in the center of Paris that Suich Bass calls unbeatable
It does point to a broader trend, which is that independent bookstores are thriving in some countries, serving as community gathering spaces for people who want to do something with other people offline
The shop claims a lot of tourists as customers; some locals complain there are too many, but Suich Bass notes that many bookstore owners would call that a good problem to have
All three stories turn on a promise somebody else still has to keep: China is buying robots that cannot do much on the strength of the ones that might exist later, the states have signed a settlement whose full value depends on the cases they have not yet brought, and the most famous bookstore in the world sells a history that visitors are not allowed to photograph.
Products, Companies & Tools Mentioned
Tiangong Ultra (The humanoid Weinland says beat Usain Bolt's 100 meter record at the Beijing games, and then crashed into a wall)
Hubei Humanoid Innovation Center, Wuhan (The robot training center Weinland spent months trying to get into: room for about 100 humanoids, with stations mocked up as a grocery store, a pharmacy and a factory line)
JD.com (Recruiting 100,000 of its own staff and 500,000 people outside the company into headsets, gloves and sensor suits, aiming at 10 million hours of movement data in two years)
Meta, Facebook and Instagram (The $12 billion to $17 billion settlement with 29 states, plus age checks, a two-hour daily cap for teens, overnight blackouts, hidden like counts and an optional chronological feed)
Snapchat (Sued by Pennsylvania's attorney general over the risks its design poses to minors days after the settlement; the stock fell about 8%)
TikTok and YouTube (The other platforms the states now have an incentive to pursue, because Meta's fine only reaches its maximum if similar settlements follow)
Altria (Fulwood's counterexample to the idea that a giant settlement finishes an industry — 36 times an investor's money from 2000, against about eight times for the S&P 500)
Shakespeare and Company (The Paris bookstore at 75: two to three thousand visitors a day, no photography inside, a stamp in every book and tote bags on the shelf)
Books & Resources Mentioned
Ulysses (Published by Sylvia Beach when everyone else thought it was obscene, in Suich Bass's account of the first Shakespeare and Company)
Get the latest market chatter and takes as they happen:
X | Threads | Instagram | YouTube | TikTok | Facebook