Rodney Brooks
@rodneyabrooks.bsky.social
Primarily Robotics and AI. Distinguishing hype-notism from plausibility one press release at a time. rodneybrooks.com/blog people.csail.mit.edu/brooks
Tonight in center Waymo in a phalanx of three with another two rows behind. In 4.5 mile journey across SF it as only the last 14 blocks where there moments where no other Waymos were visible. Before that always one within three car lengths and sometimes up to three others.
November 11, 2025 at 5:06 AM
Tonight in center Waymo in a phalanx of three with another two rows behind. In 4.5 mile journey across SF it as only the last 14 blocks where there moments where no other Waymos were visible. Before that always one within three car lengths and sometimes up to three others.
Jobs changing so fast! Today in Kendall Sq Cambridge MA saw a human operated backhoe digging a trench in the road and a guy standing there ducking the backhoe pushing dirt spilled on the blacktop back into the trench. I had exactly that job in Dec 1974 in Adelaide Australia. 51 years ago. No change.
November 6, 2025 at 9:46 PM
Jobs changing so fast! Today in Kendall Sq Cambridge MA saw a human operated backhoe digging a trench in the road and a guy standing there ducking the backhoe pushing dirt spilled on the blacktop back into the trench. I had exactly that job in Dec 1974 in Adelaide Australia. 51 years ago. No change.
A short essay following up on the recently rediscovered poem by Adrienne Rich, titled "Artificial Intelligence", and written in 1961. I do what she suggested back then. I forced AI systems to write some poems. rodneybrooks.com/a-prophetic-...
A Prophetic Poem about Artificial Intelligence Written in 1961 – Rodney Brooks
rodneybrooks.com
November 3, 2025 at 3:25 AM
A short essay following up on the recently rediscovered poem by Adrienne Rich, titled "Artificial Intelligence", and written in 1961. I do what she suggested back then. I forced AI systems to write some poems. rodneybrooks.com/a-prophetic-...
The origin of the term AGI by @stevenlevy.bsky.social-I have worked in AI for 50 years and still think we were chasing what AGI claims to be chasing. Meta now chases ASI--Artificial Super Intelligence. I think we should all be chasing AHI--Artificial Hyper Intelligence. www.wired.com/story/the-ma...
The Man Who Invented AGI
Everyone is obsessed with artificial general intelligence—the stage when AI can match all feats of human cognition. The guy who named it saw it as a threat.
www.wired.com
November 2, 2025 at 6:27 PM
The origin of the term AGI by @stevenlevy.bsky.social-I have worked in AI for 50 years and still think we were chasing what AGI claims to be chasing. Meta now chases ASI--Artificial Super Intelligence. I think we should all be chasing AHI--Artificial Hyper Intelligence. www.wired.com/story/the-ma...
Pay $500/month&request on phone app a task to be done-human virtually in your house teleops robot-sometimes succeeds. "In reality, projects like Tesla’s Optimus or 1X’s NEO are less about practical consumer robotics and more about cashing in off of technological hype." futurism.com/future-socie...
$20,000 Robot Servant Comes With a Major Catch
Owners of the NEO butler-bot from 1X will have to schedule a time for remote operators to plug in and complete tasks.
futurism.com
November 2, 2025 at 12:32 AM
Pay $500/month&request on phone app a task to be done-human virtually in your house teleops robot-sometimes succeeds. "In reality, projects like Tesla’s Optimus or 1X’s NEO are less about practical consumer robotics and more about cashing in off of technological hype." futurism.com/future-socie...
Having run an 800+ person AI/CS research lab at MIT I can say that diversity of thought and passionate arguments are at the core of advancing. Laying off 600 researchers at Meta today Alexandr Wang explained: By reducing the size of our team, fewer conversations will be required to make a decision.
October 23, 2025 at 6:44 AM
Having run an 800+ person AI/CS research lab at MIT I can say that diversity of thought and passionate arguments are at the core of advancing. Laying off 600 researchers at Meta today Alexandr Wang explained: By reducing the size of our team, fewer conversations will be required to make a decision.
No they are not here. Read the story & judge for yourself. Flying cars used to be things that could drive on roads & fly. Now they are simply electric helicopters on the very edge of being able to fly people due to the physics of flight and today's known battery tech. www.wsj.com/lifestyle/ca...
I Test Drove a Flying Car. Get Ready, They’re Here.
Dan Neil takes a test flight of the Pivotal BlackFly, a series-produced electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicle made for consumers
www.wsj.com
October 22, 2025 at 7:42 AM
No they are not here. Read the story & judge for yourself. Flying cars used to be things that could drive on roads & fly. Now they are simply electric helicopters on the very edge of being able to fly people due to the physics of flight and today's known battery tech. www.wsj.com/lifestyle/ca...
NASA is understandably getting wobbly about SpaceX's ability to land astronauts on the Moon soon. This morning on Fox acting NASA administrator Sean Duffy: "I'm in the process of opening that contract up...a space race in...American companies competing...who can actually get us back to the Moon".
October 20, 2025 at 6:27 PM
NASA is understandably getting wobbly about SpaceX's ability to land astronauts on the Moon soon. This morning on Fox acting NASA administrator Sean Duffy: "I'm in the process of opening that contract up...a space race in...American companies competing...who can actually get us back to the Moon".
Alan Kay (invented personal computers) on AI. We love theater as system 1 (Kahneman) fires and fools, but we know it's not real due to system 2, logical reasoning. Exposed to LLMs sys 1 fires wildly but we have no sys 2 understanding of it to control our love of it. www.youtube.com/live/GmnBTCK...
Celebrating the 75th Anniversary of the Turing Test
YouTube video by The Royal Society
www.youtube.com
October 13, 2025 at 6:18 AM
Alan Kay (invented personal computers) on AI. We love theater as system 1 (Kahneman) fires and fools, but we know it's not real due to system 2, logical reasoning. Exposed to LLMs sys 1 fires wildly but we have no sys 2 understanding of it to control our love of it. www.youtube.com/live/GmnBTCK...
This morning Prez Kornbluth of MIT sent a letter to US Dept of Ed Secretary McMahon. Key sentence replying to the demand for MIT to submit to POTUS whims in exchange for science funds:
Therefore, with respect, we cannot support the proposed approach to addressing the issues facing higher education.
Therefore, with respect, we cannot support the proposed approach to addressing the issues facing higher education.
October 10, 2025 at 3:16 PM
This morning Prez Kornbluth of MIT sent a letter to US Dept of Ed Secretary McMahon. Key sentence replying to the demand for MIT to submit to POTUS whims in exchange for science funds:
Therefore, with respect, we cannot support the proposed approach to addressing the issues facing higher education.
Therefore, with respect, we cannot support the proposed approach to addressing the issues facing higher education.
Promised 5,000 Optimus this year. "Tesla slashed its production goal to 2,000 a few months later ... Then, ... summer, staffers told Musk Tesla could meet the 2,000 target, but the robots wouldn’t be very useful due to issues with their hands." But, dancing!! www.theinformation.com/articles/elo...
As Elon Musk Preps Tesla’s Optimus for Prime Time, Big Hurdles Remain
When Elon Musk takes the stage at Tesla’s annual meeting next month, one of the centerpieces of his plan to impress shareholders will be a dancing troupe of Optimus bots, the humanoid machines that he...
www.theinformation.com
October 7, 2025 at 2:47 PM
Promised 5,000 Optimus this year. "Tesla slashed its production goal to 2,000 a few months later ... Then, ... summer, staffers told Musk Tesla could meet the 2,000 target, but the robots wouldn’t be very useful due to issues with their hands." But, dancing!! www.theinformation.com/articles/elo...
From my previous company. This Sawyer ran for 35,236 hours in a factory in Oregon. You can move within its workspace, and grab it as it is operating. This is what real robots, real deployments, and real ROI are all about; productive, reliable, and safe operation. www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...
So proud of Sawyer, from my previous company. We designed them to run for 30,000 hours. That is 15 years (= 15 x 50wks x 40 hrs) of human work. This one provided 17.5 years of productivity. And… |...
So proud of Sawyer, from my previous company. We designed them to run for 30,000 hours. That is 15 years (= 15 x 50wks x 40 hrs) of human work. This one provided 17.5 years of productivity. And Sawyer...
www.linkedin.com
October 5, 2025 at 4:00 PM
From my previous company. This Sawyer ran for 35,236 hours in a factory in Oregon. You can move within its workspace, and grab it as it is operating. This is what real robots, real deployments, and real ROI are all about; productive, reliable, and safe operation. www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...
My attempt to establish cred as a humanoid realist may not be working as well as I hoped. Today I was offered a chance to invest in a pre-seed for a humanoid robot company that will have $1T (yes they said "T") revenues in 7 years. Repeat essay from last Friday: rodneybrooks.com/why-todays-h...
Why Today’s Humanoids Won’t Learn Dexterity – Rodney Brooks
rodneybrooks.com
October 3, 2025 at 6:20 PM
My attempt to establish cred as a humanoid realist may not be working as well as I hoped. Today I was offered a chance to invest in a pre-seed for a humanoid robot company that will have $1T (yes they said "T") revenues in 7 years. Repeat essay from last Friday: rodneybrooks.com/why-todays-h...
Just for the record this is a stupid headline. The robots are carrying out automated steps moving samples around and using vision to apply tools. They don't "know" what they are doing and certainly have no conception(!) of what a baby, human, or conception are. www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...
Robots are learning to make human babies. Twenty have already been born.
One in six people of reproductive age suffer from infertility. Start-ups are using AI-powered robots to increase IVF success rates and lower costs.
www.washingtonpost.com
October 1, 2025 at 8:51 PM
Just for the record this is a stupid headline. The robots are carrying out automated steps moving samples around and using vision to apply tools. They don't "know" what they are doing and certainly have no conception(!) of what a baby, human, or conception are. www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2...
My 2nd law of robotics: When robots and people coexist in the same spaces, the robots must not take away from people’s agency, particularly when the robots are failing, as inevitably they will at times. -- Here it is cops stymied by Waymos. www.sfgate.com/bayarea/arti...
‘No driver, no hands, no clue’: Driverless car pulled over on Bay Area road
Police say they warned the company about the "glitch."
www.sfgate.com
September 30, 2025 at 5:13 PM
My 2nd law of robotics: When robots and people coexist in the same spaces, the robots must not take away from people’s agency, particularly when the robots are failing, as inevitably they will at times. -- Here it is cops stymied by Waymos. www.sfgate.com/bayarea/arti...
I have just finished and just published some weekend reading for you. 9,600 words of not easy reading, on why today's humanoid robots won't learn to be dexterous. rodneybrooks.com/why-todays-h...
Why Today’s Humanoids Won’t Learn Dexterity – Rodney Brooks
rodneybrooks.com
September 27, 2025 at 12:06 AM
I have just finished and just published some weekend reading for you. 9,600 words of not easy reading, on why today's humanoid robots won't learn to be dexterous. rodneybrooks.com/why-todays-h...
A few months ago I sat down to talk with @bheater.bsky.social about humanoids, automation, and deploying them at scale. He published it on his automate outlet today. www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qxO...
Rodney Brooks: The Truth About Humanoid Robots and AI Hype
YouTube video by Automated Podcast
www.youtube.com
September 24, 2025 at 3:10 PM
A few months ago I sat down to talk with @bheater.bsky.social about humanoids, automation, and deploying them at scale. He published it on his automate outlet today. www.youtube.com/watch?v=6qxO...
In 2011 I wrote a review of Alan Turing's 1948 paper Intelligent Machinery where he considered the case for embodied intelligence. My review was intended for a 2012 centenary celebration of Turing's birth, but no proceedings were published. So here it is. rodneybrooks.com/alan-turing-...
Alan Turing on Embodied Intelligence – Rodney Brooks
rodneybrooks.com
September 21, 2025 at 12:00 AM
In 2011 I wrote a review of Alan Turing's 1948 paper Intelligent Machinery where he considered the case for embodied intelligence. My review was intended for a 2012 centenary celebration of Turing's birth, but no proceedings were published. So here it is. rodneybrooks.com/alan-turing-...
This is a thoughtful review of the new book: If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies. I might rephrase it in terms of 2 of my 7 deadly sins of predicting the future of AI: performance vs competence, & indistinguishability of sufficiently advanced technology from magic. www.theatlantic.com/books/archiv...
The Useful Idiots of AI Doomsaying
Those who predict that superintelligence will destroy humanity serve the same interests as those who believe that it will solve all of our problems.
www.theatlantic.com
September 19, 2025 at 7:29 PM
This is a thoughtful review of the new book: If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies. I might rephrase it in terms of 2 of my 7 deadly sins of predicting the future of AI: performance vs competence, & indistinguishability of sufficiently advanced technology from magic. www.theatlantic.com/books/archiv...
Our team at Robust AI makes robots more intuitive for real users. We're not replacing people, we are giving them superpowers with robots that understand when and how to help them. www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...
| Robust.AI
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www.linkedin.com
September 17, 2025 at 4:45 AM
Our team at Robust AI makes robots more intuitive for real users. We're not replacing people, we are giving them superpowers with robots that understand when and how to help them. www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...
This story says that there is yet another entrant in the humanoid space. Oh, good grief! www.wired.com/story/openai...
OpenAI Ramps Up Robotics Work in Race Toward AGI
The company behind ChatGPT is putting together a team capable of developing algorithms to control robots and appears to be hiring roboticists who work specifically on humanoids.
www.wired.com
September 15, 2025 at 2:03 PM
This story says that there is yet another entrant in the humanoid space. Oh, good grief! www.wired.com/story/openai...
Tom Dietterich @tdietterich.bsky.social talks about the problem of AI generated papers being a virtual DOS attack on human reviewers, and suggests some new rules for this new situation.
We need new rules for publishing AI-generated research. The teams developing automated AI scientists have customarily submitted their papers to standard refereed venues (journals and conferences) and to arXiv. Often, acceptance has been treated as the dependent variable. 1/
September 14, 2025 at 5:48 PM
Tom Dietterich @tdietterich.bsky.social talks about the problem of AI generated papers being a virtual DOS attack on human reviewers, and suggests some new rules for this new situation.
Evan Ackerman has been a thoughtful reporter on robotics for a decade or more @spectrum.ieee.org spectrum.ieee.org/humanoid-rob...
Reality Is Ruining the Humanoid Robot Hype
It takes more than building a humanoid robot to build a humanoid robot product.
spectrum.ieee.org
September 12, 2025 at 11:52 PM
Evan Ackerman has been a thoughtful reporter on robotics for a decade or more @spectrum.ieee.org spectrum.ieee.org/humanoid-rob...
Benjie Holson has come up with a humanoid robot Olympics, all events are trivial for real humans. generalrobots.substack.com/p/benjies-hu...
Benjie's Humanoid Olympic Games
A gauntlet thrown
generalrobots.substack.com
September 8, 2025 at 5:35 PM
Benjie Holson has come up with a humanoid robot Olympics, all events are trivial for real humans. generalrobots.substack.com/p/benjies-hu...
1/5 A poem by Adrienne Rich, 1961, titled "Artificial Intelligence" dedicated to GPS (of Newell and Simon). Eerily prophetic and a great description of LLMs "when they make you write your poetry, later on". On page 136 of this book: www.amazon.com/dp/039328511...
Collected Poems: 1950–2012
Collected Poems: 1950–2012 [Rich, Adrienne, Rankine, Claudia] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Collected Poems: 1950–2012
www.amazon.com
September 5, 2025 at 4:23 AM
1/5 A poem by Adrienne Rich, 1961, titled "Artificial Intelligence" dedicated to GPS (of Newell and Simon). Eerily prophetic and a great description of LLMs "when they make you write your poetry, later on". On page 136 of this book: www.amazon.com/dp/039328511...