Robotics Posts

In February 2024, the Ukrainian military released footage of FPV (first-person view) drones chasing and destroying Russian tanks. Small, cheap quadcopters—costing perhaps $500 each—were defeating armored vehicles worth millions. Both sides were deploying thousands of drones per month.¹

Every year, roughly 5,000 workers die on the job in the United States. Tens of thousands more die from occupational diseases. Globally, the International Labour Organization estimates 2.3 million work-related deaths annually—6,300 per day.¹

Why build a robot that looks like a person?

For the first years of the AI revolution, language models were impressive answerers. You asked a question; you got an answer. You requested text; text appeared. The model responded to prompts—sophisticated, but reactive at its core.

In 1926, the word "robot" was only six years old—coined by Karel Čapek in his 1920 play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots). Artificial intelligence as a field didn't exist; the term wouldn't be invented for another thirty years. Computers were human beings—women, mostly—who performed calculations by hand. The machines that would eventually think were unimaginable.

At any given moment, approximately 3.5 million semi-trucks are rolling on American highways. They carry 72% of the nation's freight by value—$800 billion worth of goods annually. Nearly everything you buy traveled by truck at some point: the food in your refrigerator, the phone in your pocket, the furniture in your home.¹