How AI and robotics are changing work

As the spotlight turns toward robotics data, this post we published a few weeks ago feels more relevant than ever: https://lnkd.in/gP3iziUM Naively built robotics datasets will falter, and often do more harm than good, for end-to-end policies. When poring through raw dataset, it's astounding (as many ML engineers know) how much data is effectively unusable- filled with occlusions, miscalibrations, redundant motion, and poorly contextualized sensor data. And with robotics, that threshold of quality is raised even higher. That’s why the real challenge isn’t just collecting more data, but collecting the right data. When the data is coherent, diverse, and task-aligned, scale becomes a powerful multiplier. Quantity compounds value only when quality comes first. #robotics #data #avearobotics

🤔 **Can Humanoid Robots Truly Mimic Human Interaction?** The technological landscape is rapidly evolving with impressive advancements in humanoid robotics and AI. But how close are we to robots that genuinely interact like us? Here are 4 intriguing insights: 1️⃣ **Resilience and Recovery:** Unitry's G1 humanoid robot showcases remarkable balance and recovery capabilities. This development marks a significant step in making robots more reliable and effective in industrial environments, reducing downtime due to physical shocks. 2️⃣ **Expressive Robotics:** Headform's creation of a humanoid head with high emotional expressiveness signifies a leap towards robots engaging more naturally. Such advancements make interactions feel more authentic, breaking conventional barriers in human-robot communication. 3️⃣ **AI Adaptability:** Skilled AI has demonstrated a flexible 'robot brain' capable of functioning amidst severe physical alterations. This adaptability hints at the future of AI systems operating seamlessly across different platforms and conditions. 4️⃣ **Open-source Innovation:** Forier's N1 is fostering creativity by offering a lightweight humanoid as an open-source platform. This approach invites a wider range of developers to contribute, promoting accelerated innovation and customization. 💬 **What are your thoughts on these developments? Which one excites or concerns you the most? Let's discuss in the comments!** 👇 #Robotics #ArtificialIntelligence #Innovation #TechnologyTrends

Robo Tap 2026: Altman’s all-stack Ai, morphing robots, Taiwan’s showcase, and Amazon’s automation purge 🤖 This week’s tech pulse cuts through the spin. @Sam Altman claims Ai will soon design not just software, but robots, factories, and full data center stacks. Meanwhile, Richtech Robotics crashes under lawsuits and unpaid wage disclosures. On the experimental edge, a new duo of shape-shifting bots merges mobility with modularity, suggesting future machines may be less humanoid, more insectile. Taiwan’s Robotics Expo reveals real traction: tactile limbs, industrial arms, and no hype. But the biggest headline comes from The Verge: Amazon has now automated over 750,000 roles, potentially replacing more than 600,000 workers. No press release. Just implementation. https://lnkd.in/e8ktnKhq

🚨 In case you missed it, Google DeepMind recently unveiled Gemini Robotics 1.5 — models that let robots not only plan multi-step tasks but also search the web in real time to solve problems. https://lnkd.in/gvv3PzQu This means a robot could separate recycling based on local rules, pack a suitcase for London weather, or even transfer learned skills across completely different machines. At D!srupt AI, we see this as a turning point: AI moving from digital assistants to embodied intelligence, bridging data, context, and the physical world. The implications stretch far beyond robotics — into workforce transformation, civic systems, and the future of human-machine collaboration. Our mission is to pursue the impossible: not just building smarter machines, but reshaping economies and communities through applied AI. Breakthroughs like this reinforce why we’re investing in trusted data curation, community labs, and real-world pilots here in New Hampshire... so these capabilities can serve everyone. 👉 What excites (or concerns) you most about robots tapping the web to act in the physical world? #AI #Robotics #AppliedAI #DisruptAI

We’re witnessing the rise of the generalist robot—adaptable, collaborative, and transformative. In my latest Forbes article with the brilliant Steve Ricketts, we talk about how AI and advanced manufacturing are enabling robots to augment human potential in powerful new ways. Check it out: https://lnkd.in/gZrQKywh #Robotics #AI #FutureOfWork #Innovation #AdvancedManufacturing #Technology

🚀 Can robots really “understand” the world? Gemini Robotics‑ER 1.5 might be a step closer. After reading this in-depth article from Il Sole 24 Ore: 🔗 https://lnkd.in/dR5SA9j8 …I started diving deeper into the technical foundations of Google DeepMind's Gemini Robotics‑ER 1.5 �� and what it means for the future of embodied AI. 🔍 What stood out to me: A) The model links natural language, visual input, and spatial understanding to execute robotic tasks in the real world. B) It’s trained in simulation, then refined in physical environments — a common strategy to close the sim-to-real gap. 📄 https://lnkd.in/dhStzGzZ C) It shows cross-embodiment generalization, transferring skills across different robot types. 📄 Technical model card: https://lnkd.in/dVjpWz9a D) The architecture builds on recent research integrating perception, reasoning, and action: 📄 Embodied-R1: Reinforced Embodied Reasoning for General Robotic Manipulation https://lnkd.in/dc-AVdFq E) Planning can be supported by external tool use (e.g. web search), enabling decisions grounded in real-world context. 📄 RobotxR1: Enabling Embodied Robotic Intelligence on LLMs through Closed-Loop Reinforcement Learning https://lnkd.in/djtGSp7B ⚠️ But several open challenges remain: 1) The sim-to-real gap is still a fundamental issue in robotics 📄 A Survey: Learning Embodied Intelligence from Physical Simulators and World Models https://lnkd.in/dN9uyntr 2) Safety and alignment are critical when real-world physical actions are involved 📄 Towards ASIMOV Benchmarks: Evaluating Safety, Alignment, and Value Alignment in Embodied Agents https://lnkd.in/dNMY286q 3) Generalization across unseen environments, occlusions, or failure modes still lacks strong guarantees 4) Hardware (sensors, actuators) can limit the practical performance of intelligent agents 💬 From my perspective, Gemini‑ER 1.5 is an exciting direction. It's a real-world testbed for the convergence of LLMs, robotics, and multimodal perception, but we’re still early in the journey toward deployable, general-purpose embodied intelligence. What do you think, how far are we from reliable, useful robots that can act safely and adaptively in dynamic environments?

🦾💸 The Humanoid Hype: Are We Funding Fantasy? Rodney Brooks, co-founder of iRobot and MIT veteran, just lobbed a truth grenade into the humanoid robotics gold rush. In his latest critique, he calls out the billions pouring into startups like Figure and Tesla’s robotics arm as “pure fantasy thinking”. Why? Because teaching robots dexterity via human video demonstrations ignores the brutal reality: human hands have ~17,000 touch receptors. Robots? Not even close. And when these bipedal bots fall, they don’t just stumble—they become safety hazards, packing exponentially more kinetic energy as they scale. Brooks predicts that the real winners won’t look human at all. Think wheels, arms, sensors—not sci-fi silhouettes. Meanwhile, today’s humanoid prototypes are expensive experiments unlikely to reach mass production. 🔍 What’s striking isn’t just the technical critique—it’s the cognitive dissonance. Investors perceive speed and progress, yet studies show AI tools can slow developers down by 19%, even as they feel 20% faster. Perception ≠ performance. 💡 For those of us navigating AI ethics, urban innovation, or digital hygiene, Brooks offers a sobering reminder: not all moonshots are worth chasing. Sometimes, the most human thing we can do is rethink what “human-like” innovation should actually look like. #AIethics #Robotics #InnovationStrategy #TechBubble #DigitalHygiene #UrbanFutures #LinkedInThinkers

Om Malik's thoughts on AI from a conversation he had with Rodney Brooks, some MIT nerd who founded a few robotics companies. "We recently connected for a conversation about robotics, artificial intelligence, and the future. Contrary to many, he believes humans will do just fine in a world filled with robots and AI. He poured cold water on the humanoid robot hype. He also said that if you look at the computer and internet revolutions, the AI revolution is going to take a lot longer than most think. “There’s a tendency to go for the flashy demo. But the flashy demo doesn’t deal with the real environment. It’s going to have to operate in—the messy reality. That’s why it takes so long for these technologies,” he said. He painted a more pragmatic yet optimistic vision ahead. He warned that humanoid hype is creating a lot of false expectations. Excerpts from our conversation." https://lnkd.in/d2uUGrTb

Artificial Intelligence is powering the next wave of innovation in robotics — enabling smarter vision, adaptive motion, collaborative autonomy, and more. This article explores emerging trends and what’s ahead for AI + robotics: https://lnkd.in/er9J9GpQ