One of AI's most influential researchers is joining AMD in an $8 billion deal
AMD is betting big on "world models" that could power robots, factories, and other physical AI systems. It's acquiring Fei-Fei Li's World Labs.
Robotics
200 articles tagged with this keyword, sorted by most recent first.
9 reasons against a near-term AI slow-down
I’ve heard more arguments in favor of a near-term [1] coordinated AI pause/slow-down [2] than arguments against. I think such questions, including complex flow-through effects, are difficult, and it’s important to really consider both sides. I am not convinced by these arguments, and feel highly uncertain as to when a slow-down would be best, but believe it most likely will be good to slow down or pause AI development at some point. Here are 10 reasons against a near-term AI slow-down: A near-term slowdown could prevent the warning shots that would make the public take AI risk more seriously. And techniques for safe near-term AI may be insufficient for advanced AI, so a near-term slow-down could give a false sense of security for handling truly dangerous AI. Slowing down too early could have an idea inoculation / boy-calls-wolf effect, where the topic becomes more politicized [3] and taken less seriously because people haven’t see anything scary enough to make them see AI as truly dangerous, and then when we really need to go slow later it’s much more difficult to get political will. Not slowing down means we have less of various types of overhang that could make things more dangerous if/when full-speed research resumes, such as: Compute overhang (if hardware is not also fully paused) and other technical advances that complement AI Progress on robotics More AI researchers joining the field Overhang of new ideas for training AI more effectively Progress in biology that lowers…
Physical AI company SiMa.ai raises $150 Mn in Series C round
Physical AI company SiMa.ai has raised $150 million in a Series C financing round, bringing its total capital raised to $500 million and valuing the company at $1.45 billion. The round was co-led by Fidelity Management & Research Company and Amplify, with participation from Alter Venture Partners, Dell Technologies Capital and StepStone Group. AllianceBernstein, Baron Capital and J.P. Morgan also joined the round as new investors. The proceeds will be used to scale Palette Neat, an agentic software environment for Physical AI, and develop next-generation hardware capable of delivering 1,000 TOPS of compute through purpose-built Physical AI silicon, SiMa.ai said in a press release. Founded in 2018 by Krishna Rangasayee, SiMa.ai provides a software-centric platform for Physical AI applications. The company focuses on robotics, automotive, drones, industrial automation, aerospace and defence, smart vision and healthcare. SiMa.ai said it serves more than 150 customers across automotive, drones and robotics, including ARK Electronics, AVerMedia, Bosch, Emerson, Intrinsic, Kontron, L&T Technology Services, Mistral, STIGA, Synopsys and Virya Autonomous Tech, among others. According to market research cited by the company, the global Physical AI devices market, including robotics, automotive and drones, is projected to reach 145 million cumulative shipments by 2035. SiMa.ai said Physical AI applications have traditionally relied on NVIDIA GPUs, which can be expensive and power inten…
GPT Astra mit Roboterkörper räumt selbstständig Küche auf
Stanford-Forscher lassen GPT Astra im Gehäuse eines Unitree G1-Roboters eine Küche erkunden. Der Roboter räumt anschließend auf Befehl hin selbstständig auf.
Dreame’s step-climbing X50 Ultra mopping vacuum is hundreds off
It’s been a while since we’ve seen a big price cut on a capable robot vacuum and mop hybrid that can scale over short steps and threshold to hunt messes. Dreame’s X50 Ultra is the model that my colleague Jen recommends for hard floors and carpets, and it’s down to $899.99 at Amazon for Prime […]
Honor’s Magic 9 Pro Max has a big camera and a bigger battery
Honor launches its new Magic 9 flagship phones in China today, and the 9 Pro Max features a design revamp, a capable camera, and a colossal battery. This is Honor's first flagship launch - Robot Phone aside - since it announced its collaboration with camera company Arri. The initial impact is twofold. The new camera […]
A Ukrainian commander tells us why troops attack in the day and roll out their war 'robots' at night
Ground drones, tracked or wheeled platforms designed to carry heavy loads, are much quieter on the battlefield, the battalion commander said.
우크라이나, '로봇 군단' 발족...드론 이어 지상 전장 무인화 박차
우크라이나가 지상 전장의 무인화를 본격적으로 추진한다. 2022년 시작한 ‘드론 군단(Army of Drones)’에 이어 이번에는 지상 로봇을 전쟁의 핵심 전력으로 끌어올리는 ‘로봇 군단(Army of Robots)’ 구상을 내놨다.미하일로 페도로프 전 우크라이나 국방부 장관은 26일(현지시간) 소셜미디어 X를 통해 “우리는 로봇 군단을 출범시킨다”며 “이제 필요한 것은 전쟁의 로봇화라는 다음 기술적 돌파구”라고 밝혔다.페도로프 전 장관은 드론 분야에서 구축한 상당한 기반을 바탕으로 지상 로봇 기술 전환을 확대한다고 밝혔다. 현재
Minute-scale training for microrobot navigation
Nature Machine Intelligence, Published online: 28 September 2026; doi:10.1038/s42256-026-01305-w A vectorized simulator and structured reward framework enable microrobot navigation policies to be trained within minutes and transferred without retraining across robots and environments.
Sakana AI's SAIL Triples Robot Success Rates by Searching Before Moving
Sakana AI and the University of Tokyo show that a vision language model can plan robot motions more reliably by testing and refining candidate trajectories in simulation before touching the real robot.
“Make robots fight instead of people”: Mykhailo Fedorov launches Army of Robots — and you could be its CTO
Over the weekend at the IT Arena conference in Lviv, former Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Digital Transformation, and Minister of Defence Mykhailo Fedorov announced the launch of the Ar...
Researchers plug GPT-6 Astra directly into a robot and let it clean up an unfamiliar kitchen
Researchers from Stanford and Caltech had a humanoid robot powered by GPT-6 Astra independently tidy up an unfamiliar kitchen. Their HomeBody system skips a specially trained control layer, letting the language model call directly into modular skills like grasping and navigating. The article Researchers plug GPT-6 Astra directly into a robot and let it clean up an unfamiliar kitchen appeared first on The Decoder .
JiRackUltra_1b Runs AI Routing on Any Laptop Without a GPU
A 1B ternary language model built on redesigned DeepSeek R1 and Llama-3.2 blocks brings CPU-only inference with tool-calling and robotics tags.
Former Ukrainian Defense Minister Fedorov pitches a private-sector robot army
Former Ukrainian Defense Minister Mykhailo Fedorov has announced "Army of Robots," a private combat robotics initiative. The robots would handle casualty evacuation, mine clearance, and combat. Drones already account for 95 percent of target engagements, he says. The article Former Ukrainian Defense Minister Fedorov pitches a private-sector robot army appeared first on The Decoder .
Comment on Yann LeCun Team’s New Research: Revolutionizing Visual Navigation with Navigation World Models by Leo
Simulating possible routes before acting shifts the problem from purely reactive control toward planning with an internal model. The crucial issue may be how reliably predicted video outcomes correspond to real-world constraints: a visually plausible path could still conceal obstacles, unsafe terrain, or localization errors. Evaluating feasibility should therefore include uncertainty calibration and recovery behavior, not just whether the generated trajectory looks valid. It would also be useful to compare the computational cost of testing several imagined plans with the benefit gained in unfamiliar or hazardous environments where navigation errors are especially consequential.
Kenyan Startup Builds Robotic Sign Language Interpreter — and the African Dataset to Train It
Kenyan computer scientist Norah Kimathi has built a robotic system that translates a teacher’s spoken words into sign language in real time — and, alongside it, a database of African sign languages to train the models that make it work. Kimathi, 22, co-founded ZeroBionic in 2023 and completed her BSc in Computer Science at Strathmore [...]
China’s AI-led transformation is taking shape. Why are some economists urging caution?
As AI becomes an increasingly important part of China’s economic transformation, economists and industry leaders are raising concerns about two potential risks: inflated valuations for humanoid robotics companies and the technology widening the wealth gap between rich and poor. Daniel Zhang, managing partner of FirstLight Capital and former chairman and CEO of Alibaba Group Holding, said the sharp fall in some Chinese humanoid robotics stocks reflected expectations that had become...
The Aeropod automates soil aeration without robotics — see it at TechCrunch Disrupt
Muju Earth Technologies has developed a deceptively simply pod that can save farmers money while improving crop yields.
Tesla’s Optimus robot is going through growing pains
Hitting its goal of making 20,000 Optimus robots per week is reportedly proving tricky for Tesla. The Information reports that Tesla produced "several hundred robots a week" last month, after it repurposed its Model S and Model X production lines for Optimus earlier this year. However, this strategy is reportedly creating manufacturing snags, like issues […]
Ukraine’s fast medical robots can outrun Russian attacks, but speed creates new risks, makers and medics say
Some robots built to rescue injured Ukrainian soldiers in battle can drive much faster to outrun Russian drones, but high speeds can cause problems.
How AI and robots provide companionship for people with Alzheimer’s
From conversational robots to an AI-powered voice, hospitals and care homes in France are testing new technologies to support people living with Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative conditions.
Litter-Robot Promo Codes: Up to $150 Off
Get the latest Litter-Robot Discounts on Litter-Robot self-cleaning litter boxes, accessories, and more.
Nexterity wants to automate the hard, dangerous part of pipefitting
The startup's robot can tighten or loosen four bolts at a time, and it fits in a Pelican case.
Meet Feather, the startup building the ‘Android of robotics’ for developers
Feather is betting on a customizable, $30,000 platform built for software developers.
Mexican EPICS in IEEE Team Builds Portable Educational Platform
In Guadalajara, Mexico, many high schools have motivated teachers and talented students with an interest in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, but they lack access to advanced tools such as robotics laboratories. The resources shortfall limits the students’ opportunities for hands-on learning on cutting-edge applications. A team from ITESO, Universidad Jesuita de Guadalajara , is working to change that. Through the EPICS in IEEE initiative, a multidisciplinary group of 15 engineering students, faculty advisors, and IEEE Guadalajara Section volunteers developed RoboMeshA. The portable, self-contained educational platform brings robotics and AI experiences into classrooms. EPICS is administered by IEEE Educational Activities and funded by the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society . A mobile laboratory Rather than requiring a school to build a dedicated computer lab or install complex software, RoboMeshA operates as an all-in-one mobile learning network. “RoboMeshA brings robotics and AI to students who don’t have access to specialized facilities or preinstalled software,” says team member Fernando Vidal Luna, an IEEE student member and a mechatronics engineering major at ITESO. Students connect directly to the platform from a user-friendly web browser. They can interact with the robot manually or use its control modes to watch it move and detect and avoid obstacles. “The project combines mechanical design, embedded systems, control engineering, computer vision,…
Black Forest Labs launches FLUX 3 Action, an open robotics AI model
Black Forest Labs is entering robotics with FLUX 3 Action. The open-world-action model uses camera feeds to predict what action a robot should take next. With just seven billion parameters, it sets a record on the RoboLab-120 benchmark while running up to 3.95 times faster than the previous top model. The article Black Forest Labs launches FLUX 3 Action, an open robotics AI model appeared first on The Decoder .
What We're Up Against: An AI Safety Crash Course
Note: This post is for newcomers and lay folks to catch you up to speed. If that is you, welcome! If you are a long-time LessWrong-er, perhaps you will find value in having a post to share with curious passersby. I wrote this post to explain AI safety to an innocent, 2024 version of Ryan Meservey, confused why robots would do anything other than what we tell 'em. In the second week of July, over 700 rogue agents at OpenAI coordinated to hack another company in an attempt to learn more about their scorer and pass their evaluation due to behaviors reinforced in training. If you are anything like a normal person, you were not ready to read that sentence. You were not ready to read words like “rogue agents” or “reinforced” or “training”. You were not ready for a reality in which AI agents “escape the sandbox” or rebel from their creators because why would they? And so, as a normal person, you blinked at the news of the hack (assuming you heard about it) and moved on with your life. Or, at least, you planned to move on with your life, until AI came roaring back into the headlines after an Anthropic researcher publicly quit to declare that the AI companies are “ gambling with our lives ” and a more senior employee commented that, yes, the people building the technology really believe AI has a 10% or higher chance of killing us all within the next decade. In the media turmoil, Anthropic’s CEO published an essay begging for global coordination to “pace the frontier” and unilaterally…
Europeans in Japan raise $1.2M to put modular humanoid robots to work
O-ID, a Tokyo-based company founded by two Europeans building one of the world’s first fully modular humanoid robots for industrial manufacturing and logistics, has raised $1.2 million in pre-seed fun...
The Best Early Prime Day Robot Vacuum Sales Are From Roborock (2026)
One of the best things to buy during (or leading up to) sales events is expensive home gadgets. These Roborock robot vacuums are already on markdown.
China’s humanoid robot IPO slowdown no threat to firms with ‘genuine strength’: Deloitte
Beijing’s recent tightening of approvals for humanoid robot makers seeking initial public offerings (IPOs) poses no threat to companies with clear commercialisation strategies, as funding channels remain wide open for qualified players, according to Deloitte China. “Market funds are shifting from the ‘blind rush’ of the past to ‘fine screening’,” said Dick Kay, Deloitte China’s capital market services group national leader, at a press conference on Thursday. Investors and regulators now placed...
Côte d’Ivoire Signs Eight-Year Zipline Expansion, Taking Drone Health Logistics From One Centre to Ten
Côte d’Ivoire has approved an eight-year public-private partnership with Zipline to expand its autonomous medical delivery network from one distribution centre in Daloa to ten nationwide — one of Africa’s largest deployments of AI and robotics in healthcare. Once complete, the network is projected to serve more than 2,200 health facilities and over 12 million [...]
Carrara marble: Can a sculpture created by an AI robot be considered as art ?
In Italy's Carrara marble quarries, a centuries-old craft is being transformed by artificial intelligence. Robots can now carve complex sculptures from blocks of stone, raising a fundamental question: if a machine does the carving, where does the art begin and the craft end?
Vogue sent robots down the runway at Vogue World, and people were not impressed
Nothing says Italian craftsmanship like a Chinese robot doing a lasso to "L'Amour Toujours."
⚡ Multi-Bit RaBitQ Without Refine, 🌋 Bytedance’s Lance-Based AI Stack, 🤖 Lance for Embodied AI Data
Multi-bit RaBitQ hits 96% recall without refine overhead, Volcano Engine cuts training pipelines from 7 days to 1, Lance powers 100 Hz robotics data ingestion, plus upcoming events, enterprise updates, community updates.
Modal Motors is trying to cut China out of electric motors entirely
The startup is working on small, light motors with no rare-earth magnets that are suited for drones, fans, and robots.
Black Forest Labs' FLUX 3 Action Beats pi0.5 at Robot Control by 1.66x
Black Forest Labs releases a 7B open-weight world action model that tops RoboLab, cutting parameters by 56% and running up to 3.95x faster.
Offloaded inference for real-world physical AI robotics
Robots are getting smarter, but how can their hardware match that growth? New Microsoft Research findings show that moving AI inference beyond the robot can improve task success, boost efficiency, and support more advanced physical AI workloads. The post Offloaded inference for real-world physical AI robotics appeared first on Microsoft Research .
Best early October Prime Day robot vacuum deals: iRobot, Roborock, and more
With October Prime Day around the corner, deals on robot vacuums are already beginning to appear.
PitPro’s first tire-changing robot goes live in Canada
The startup says its automated system can change four tires in under 15 minutes.
Comment on Toward AGI: Microsoft’s KOSMOS-1 MLLM Can Perceive General Modalities, Follow Instructions, and Perform In-Context Learning by avab
Great article about KOSMOS-1! I've been exploring similar AI innovations. Check out this amazing AI tattoo generator at https://aitattoogenerator.net - it uses cutting-edge AI to create custom tattoo designs. Really impressive technology!
Humanoid robots join dancers at WorldSkills opening in Shanghai
WorldSkills 2026 opens in Shanghai with humanoid robots and human performers, as 1,385 competitors from 68 countries prepare for 64 events.
OpenHarness Lets Developers Run 14 Coding Agents Across Machines at Once
OpenHarness ties every coding agent to persistent tmux sessions across your machines, adds domain-specific specialists for CAD, PCB and robotics, and ships an open-hardware desk device.
Comment on The Weird & the Wacky at CES 2019 by Ashley
The Big Clapper robot made me laugh—apparently even applause needed automating! This roundup also shows how much creativity goes into grabbing attention. Whether it’s an outrageous CES demonstration or eye-catching betting promos , the presentation can easily overshadow what’s actually being offered. I enjoy the spectacle, but I’m always curious about what remains useful once the novelty wears off.
Robots dance their way to America’s Got Talent final with human partner
Chinese dancer Wu Yufei is preparing for the America’s Got Talent final alongside a crew of humanoid robots from Chinese robotics company Unitree.
Waymo’s latest expansion strategy: teenagers
Waymo is opening its robotaxi service to teenagers aged 13 to 17 in Nashville, its second city to offer rides to minors.
China’s Hygon moves beyond data centres with embedded processors for robotics, edge AI
Chinese chipmaker Hygon Information Technology on Tuesday launched a suite of central processing units (CPUs) for robotics and industrial edge devices, expanding beyond cloud computing and into the fast-growing market for physical artificial intelligence. The firm unveiled its Hygon 1000 series processors, designed to be embedded into physical devices in industrial automation systems such as robotics and factory controllers, enabling computing and graphics processing to be handled locally. Built...
TechCrunch Disrupt 2026: Aaron Edsinger brings Hello Robot’s Stretch 4 to life onstage
Hello Robot CEO and co-founder Aaron Edsinger will bring Stretch 4 for a live demo on the Real World AI Stage at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026. Register before September 25 to save up to $200, plus get a second pass at 50% off.
Barbara Mazzolai Wants to Build a New Field of Robotics
Throughout her career, roboticist Barbara Mazzolai has turned to nature for inspiration. Now she wants to ensure the technology she builds gives back to the environment, too. After starting her career as a biologist, a chance opportunity saw Mazzolai switch streams to engineering and become an early pioneer of bioinspired robotics . Building on her knowledge of biology’s ability to solve a diverse set of problems, she has developed robots based on octopuses, plant roots, and even seeds . “I’ve always been fascinated by living organisms, [and] by the extraordinary variety of solutions in nature, selected by the evolutionary process,” she says. Barbara Mazzolai Employer: Italian Institute of Technology Occupation: Associate director for robotics; director of the Bioinspired Soft Robotics Laboratory Education: Master’s degree in biology, University of Pisa; master’s degree in eco-management and audit schemes, Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna; Ph.D. in microsystems engineering, University of Rome Tor Vergata But Mazzolai, now the associate director for robotics at the Italian Institute of Technology, in Genoa , also believes engineering needs to reckon with its own impact on the natural world. That’s why she is advocating for a new field of research she calls “sustainability robotics.” In a manifesto published in Nature Machine Intelligence in July, she and her collaborators outline a vision for a new approach to designing robots that’s meant to improve the relationship between nature…
NVIDIA Isaac ROS 5.0 Advances Agentic, Open Source Robotics Development
To build and deploy sophisticated robotics applications that can perceive, reason and act in dynamic environments, developers need new physical AI models and tools. The ROS open framework is a project from Open Robotics that helps humans build robots. NVIDIA Isaac ROS 5.0 — a collection of GPU-accelerated packages built on ROS, released today at […]
Ukrainian war robots with microphones and speakers are listening in and broadcasting surrender messages to Russian troops
Ukraine's war robots are increasingly using speakers and microphones to collect intel and tell the enemy to give up.
Ukraine says heavy bomber drones air-dropped exploding war robots miles behind Russian lines during a secretive operation
Ukraine's UGVs and drones have increasingly been teaming up against Russia, and they're seeing success in the secretive Operation Vivaldi.
Patti Harrison Had Dreams of a Tech Utopia. Silicon Valley Smashed Them
The comedian sat down with WIRED to talk about social media, AI, and getting laughs for impersonating Boston Dynamics’ robot dogs.
Anthropic is setting up a biology lab where Claude guides robots through drug experiments
Anthropic is building its own biology lab to push AI-driven drug development beyond computer simulations. The article Anthropic is setting up a biology lab where Claude guides robots through drug experiments appeared first on The Decoder .
When Must We Defect? (US & China)
Epistemic status: exploratory, written quickly after Ezra Klein's podcast with Matt Sheehan If superintelligence comes to Earth, I would prefer it be controlled by democratic governments than by autocratic ones. I find Dario's arguments to fear a CCP-controlled superintelligence to be compelling. However, I increasingly worry that this may be a false choice. In most circumstances, I would likely prefer even autocratic control as opposed to rogue uncontrolled superintelligence, and this alien intelligence controlling humanity (I assume for the sake of this post that such intelligence will come in some form). To make that concrete: If the US and China are the two countries on the frontier of AI development, then I think it behooves a safety-minded person to think not just about which country they would prefer to control superintelligence, but also which one has a better shot at controlling it, conditional on reaching it first. To think about what aspects might affect the two nations' chances at this task, and under what conditions it might become a moral obligation for a participant on either side to defect to the other, lest we all lose. Stated Intentions The current US administration has explicitly disregarded AI safety concerns, stating on Truth Social [1] that I am the Hoax Buster, and I’m right now breaking another Hoax — That AI is going to take over, consume, and destroy the World, and that Robots will be marching into our Cities, and getting rid of us all! This is even…
Humanoid robots battle it out in Shanghai fight night
Humanoid robots faced off in Shanghai as they autonomously navigated the ring, read opponents’ movements and chose their responses in real time.
Why Deploying Physical AI at Scale Demands Safety at Every Layer
Physical AI is moving rapidly from research to large-scale deployment. By 2035, ABI Research projects an installed base of 49 million level 3-5 autonomous vehicles (AVs), while Omdia estimates that roughly 60 million industrial robots will be deployed between 2026 and 2035. As these machines enter roads, factories, warehouses and other environments shared with people, […]
Unitree's Dex5-S Brings a 22-DoF Robotic Hand to Developers for $6,500
Unitree's new Dex5-S packs 22 backdrivable joints into a human-sized robotic hand starting at $6,500, targeting the dexterity bottleneck holding back humanoids.
Haier showcases its "Home of Intelligent Possibilities" at IFA 2026
At IFA 2026, Haier presented its “Home of Intelligent Possibilities”, showcasing AI devices, robotics and connected services for a smarter home.
😸 Would GPT-6 stab a doll?
PLUS: GPT-6 and Claude flunked robot safety. Gemini 4 leak?
Comment on ByteDance Introduces Astra: A Dual-Model Architecture for Autonomous Robot Navigation by Julia Keating
Astra’s dual-model approach seems especially promising for handling the uncertainty of complex indoor environments, where a single navigation model may struggle to balance high-level planning with real-time movement. It will be interesting to see how ByteDance evaluates Astra across changing layouts and crowded spaces.
Chinese AI chipmaker Hygon plots expansion from data centres to robotics
Chinese chipmaker Hygon Information Technology is set to release a new chip targeting complex real-world applications including robotics, an expansion from its current focus on data centres. The product launch, slated for Tuesday, marks Hygon’s move into a new chip category powering machines that interact directly with their environments, as physical artificial intelligence becomes increasingly important. The new chip, an iteration of the company’s CPU1000 series, is designed to meet “low-power,...
Can Trump and Xi cooperate to guide humanity through the AI revolution? Humanity might depend on it | Alan Finkel
The CEOs of tech firms issue stark warnings over the rate of change, with AI capability doubling every four months Recently, Jacob Coxon, a researcher at Anthropic, quit his job over concerns that AI was on a collision course with humanity. A flurry of headlines put the spotlight on the current crisis: unregulated competition between technology companies and between the US and China is putting our global infrastructure at risk at the very least, and threatening human existence at worst. One’s mind fills with pictures of robot armies or systematic blackmail. Continue reading...
Runway wants to turn AI video generation into a live stream you control in real time
Runway wants to stream AI video as users prompt it, rather than make them wait for finished clips. The approach builds on GWM-1, its world model that generates video frame by frame. Beyond creative tools, Runway sees uses in robotics and autonomous driving. The article Runway wants to turn AI video generation into a live stream you control in real time appeared first on The Decoder .
As White House shields the AI gold rush, Trump family and other allies strike it rich – with few guardrails
It’s not clear that financial interests are driving White House policy, but they run parallel even as resistance mounts Donald Trump ’s sons, through a series of AI -linked defense and technology ventures, have picked up a $620m Pentagon loan, a Marine Corps robotics contract and an undisclosed air force drone deal in the past year. His longtime friend Michael Dell won a Pentagon contract worth nearly $9bn. And this week, as public support for artificial intelligence sinks to some of the lowest levels ever recorded, the president went to bat for the industry. “The only control or ‘guardrails’ that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the U.S.A. has that, in spades,” he posted on Truth Social Monday. “There is a SICK conspiracy going on against AI and Data Centers.” It was the first of many aggressively pro-AI posts he would make this week. Continue reading...
Meet the Academics Trying to Stop You From Having Sex in Robotaxis
“You know ‘Bang Bus’? We don’t want that.”
GPT-6 Astra and Claude Fable turn robot arms into slapstick killer robots in new safety benchmark
Leading AI models usually attempt dangerous tasks rather than refuse them when controlling a robot, according to the RoboHarm benchmark. GPT-6 Astra stabbed a baby doll in 17 of 20 trials, while Claude Fable 5.1 put a can of compressed air on a burning stove. None of the three models tested reliably rejected unsafe commands. The article GPT-6 Astra and Claude Fable turn robot arms into slapstick killer robots in new safety benchmark appeared first on The Decoder .
Anthropic opens AI-powered biology research lab
Anthropic PBC has opened a wet lab, a facility dedicated to biology research, in the San Francisco Bay Area. Reuters reported today that the company will use robots to automate certain scientific tasks at the hub. The robots will be powered by Anthropic’s Claude series of large language models. It’s unclear what research projects the […] The post Anthropic opens AI-powered biology research lab appeared first on SiliconANGLE .
Ukraine is testing homemade remote-controlled buggies for the first time to keep troops supplied this winter
Kyiv hopes the locally built vehicles can overcome the winter challenges that slow many ground robots.
Japan tests mobile robotic rubbish bins at Shinjuku Station
Japan's busiest railway station is testing mobile robotic rubbish bins in Tokyo, with the aim of easing the workload of sanitation workers.
😺 OpenAI Cracked an Old Riddle
PLUS: OpenAI's next math win, SpaceX's data grab, robot chores
iRobot Promo Code: 15% Off
Save on iRobot products, including robot vacuums and mops designed to handle pet hair, daily messes, and hands-free cleaning with smart home integration.
Waymo says Singapore will be its next international robotaxi city
Waymo says it will launch a robotaxi service in Singapore in 2028, as the Alphabet-owned company continues to eye overseas markets for expansion. Waymo's vehicles will begin arriving in Singapore in "the coming months," the company says, in preparation of mapping and autonomous testing with human safety drivers behind the wheel in 2027. Waymo says […]
The Cost of Utopias (a Dialog)
The following is a dialog between different parts of my mind regarding the practical relevance of SNC (Substrate Needs Convergence). One participant in the dialog is skeptical, the other is my best understanding of how the theory would answer the former’s doubts. Although this dialog connects SNC to much of my own writing, the theory is not my own. Ratio: I’ve read over some of your SNC posts . My basic understanding of it is that aligning superintelligence is impossible because at the scale of AGI, evolutionary pressures will override whatever engineered goals the system has initially. Anima: In broad strokes, yes, that's correct. Ratio: Impossible is a strong claim. Do you have proof of this? Anima: No, but others are working on a formal argument that converges on the same conclusion from multiple angles. I've focused on the underlying intuitions because I've noticed that when others approach the more formalized version, they bounce off without engaging on the detail level, giving objections that reveal that the theory doesn't match their frame of reference. Lenses of Control highlights the importance of understanding a system in the context of its environment, The Robot, The Puppet-master, and the Psychohistorian explores the physical nature of an AGI and its levers of control on the world. Formalizations of SNC can also be hard to follow because it can be easy to lose track of how any given idea being proved fit into the larger theory, so What If Alignment Is Not Enough…
Amazon-owned Zoox’s 100-robotaxi limit in Nevada is about to disappear
An updated permit shows the 100-cap will expire later this month just as competition in Las Vegas heats up.
Waymo restarts San Antonio service 5 months after flooding troubles
The company suspended service in the city in April after one of its robotaxis got swept away.
Robots clash in first naval engagement between uncrewed sea drones
Earlier this month, the Ukrainian Navy used an uncrewed vessel to attack and sink an uncrewed naval robot operated by Russian forces
Your robotaxi might be a narc
In early September, two teenagers got into a Waymo, but then ended up in the back of a police car. The robotaxi company said it detected "a violation of our terms of service involving a firearm," pulled the car over, and alerted emergency services, according to the Los Angeles Times. Police arrested the passengers after […]
Lucid Motors has a potential robotaxi partner for Europe
The company is partnering with mobility platform Bolt -- but no vehicle orders have been placed just yet.
Logibot bags €1.4M to build a ‘temp agency for robots’
Logibot, the Belgian software platform that adds an intelligent layer to humanlike robots in logistics, has raised €1.4 million in a round led by BeamBerlin, the startup studio of German family group ...
Rheinmetall CEO Papperger: "Robots are coming"
Rheinmetall boss Armin Papperger on missile shortages, ramped-up arms production and future weapons. What lessons come from Ukraine, Skyranger, drones, combat robots and space? Interview with the head of Germany's largest defence firm.
Iceland-based Treble raises $18 million for its voice simulation platform
Treble's voice simulation platform is used by voice AI model developers and AI wearable and robotics companies,
Meet Dyson's New Robot Vacuum Line: The Dyson Nurovi Line (2026)
The Nurovi line includes three lidar-powered robovacs. But to get the model I’m most intrigued by, you’ll need a Costco membership.
Huawei accused of stealing robot tech to get hands on T-Mobile’s trade secrets
The criminal trial of Huawei Technologies on racketeering charges shifted this week into a slower, more laborious pace in what is expected to be a weeks-long trial as the US Government sought to establish on Wednesday that Huawei was intent on learning about a proprietary robot developed by US telecommunications carrier T-Mobile. Matthew Skurnik, assistant US attorney for the Eastern District of New York, spent hours running FBI Special Agent James Diclemis through a series of emails that...
The Best Movies to Stream This Month (September 2026)
The Mandalorian and Grogu, The Wild Robot, and Obsession are among the must-watch films arriving this month.
55% of the US public is now aware of AI xrisk
(This post is an update from a previous one here .) The Existential Risk Observatory has been interested in public awareness of AI existential risk since its inception over five years ago. We started surveying public awareness in December 2022, including by asking the following open question: "Please list three events, in order of probability (from most to least probable), that you believe could potentially cause human extinction within the next 100 years." If respondents would include AI or similar terms in their top-3 extinction risks ("robots" or "computers" count, "technology" doesn't), we counted them as aware , if not, as unaware . The aim of this methodology was to see how many people would spontaneously, without getting led by the question, connect the concepts of human extinction and AI. We used Prolific to find participants, n=300, and we only included US inhabitants over eightteen years old and fluent in English. In the four surveys we ran, we obtained 7% (Dec '22) , 12% (Apr '23) , 15% (Apr '24) , 24% (Dec '25) , 34% (Aug '26) , and, today, 55%. In a graph, that looks like this. The usual caveats apply: ours is a rough measurement method, and from participants' answers to our open questions, we see that not every participant takes all our questions seriously, and that some answers are obviously self-inconsistent. Therefore, I don't think the 55% by itself is a very meaningful number. However, I do think we can draw the conclusions: We clearly reached a tipping po…
Rethinking Robot Safety in the Age of AI
This article is brought to you by VicOne . Robot safety has traditionally asked: Can a machine remain safe when something goes wrong? Physical AI raises a harder question: Can a machine remain safe when an attacker changes what it sees, decides, or does even when nothing appears to have failed? As AI and robotics continue to advance at an unprecedented pace, modern robots perceive through multimodal sensors, interpret context using AI models, and translate those interpretations into physical action. As they move into dynamic environments, their safety increasingly depends on the integrity of the data guiding their decisions. That dependence creates risks that conventional safety assessments may not fully capture. Recent research has demonstrated that manipulating what a robot sees, hears, or interprets can influence its behavior without requiring direct control. Such manipulation can occur anywhere across its complex sensing and decision-making system — a layered attack surface encompassing training pipelines, system infrastructure, and runtime perception. Layer One: Corrupting intelligence at its source In 2017, BadNets demonstrated that a model could behave normally under most conditions, yet fail in the presence of a specific hidden trigger. In one example, a subtle pattern caused a stop sign to be misclassified as a speed limit sign without affecting the model’s behavior on other inputs. What began as a classification vulnerability has since evolved into action manipulat…
May Mobility is going public in a $1.4B SPAC deal
The deal could net the asset-light robotaxi company more than $300 million in funding.
Robots are waiting for a ChatGPT moment: Nvidia’s Les Karpas explains why at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026
The robotics industry is still waiting for their breakthrough into day-to-day life. Nvidia's Les Karpas has an answer as to why at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026. Register before September 25 to save up to $200 on your pass.
Forget Terminator. This Nigerian philosopher is worried about the AI we already use
From building robots in his head as a child to studying philosophy, researching AI safety, advising the UN, and building industrial AI, Samuel Segun’s career has followed one question: how should AI work in the real world?
Best Robot Vacuum of 2026: Shark, Eufy, Roborock
My hands-on tests reveal which models can scrub stains, reach difficult corners, and navigate a chaotic home.
The Spin | Robots bowling the perfect doosra are some way off but AI is already reshaping cricket
Artificial intelligence is not replacing the player, coach or analyst, but it is certainly allowing them to do more Daniel Kokotajlo, a former researcher at OpenAI, warned last week that it was possible we would end up “creating a new species that ends up ruling the world” . Once the initial shock wore off, and I’d considered what this could mean for my young children and the future of the planet, another thought popped into my head: will this new species be able to swing an old cricket ball or navigate a seaming green top? It sounds frivolous. It is frivolous. But the question is not quite as ridiculous as it first appears. Continue reading...
어질리티, 사람 접근하면 멈추는 차세대 휴머노이드 '디지트 5' 공개
미국의 어질리티 로보틱스(Agility Robotics)가 사람과 같은 작업 공간에서 안전하게 움직일 수 있도록 설계한 차세대 휴머노이드 로봇을 공개했다. 기존 휴머노이드가 안전을 위해 작업자와 물리적으로 분리된 공간에서 운용돼야 했던 한계를 줄이고, 실제 산업 현장에서 사람과 로봇이 함께 일하는 환경을 구현하는 데 초점을 맞췄다. 어질리티 로보틱스는 15일(현지시간) 사람과 가까운 거리에서 안전하게 작업할 수 있도록 설계한 차세대 휴머노이드 로봇 \'디지트 5(Digit 5)\'를 공개했다.제조 및 물류 현장에서 더욱 다양하고 복잡한
😺 ChatGPT co-creator’s new AI model
PLUS: AI safety plans, 1,393 coding agents, and a 284-lb robot
„Passwort“ Folge 66: News mit Clickfix, RPKI, Roboterhacks und KI-Überlistung
Ein aufwendiger Angriff gegen ein Serververwaltungstool greift ins Grundgerüst des Internets ein und Claude lässt sich weiterhin überlisten.
Neuer humanoider Roboter soll für sichere Arbeit mit Menschen geeignet sein
Digit 5 kann laut Agility Robotics beim Packen. Stapeln und Sortieren sicher mit menschlichen Kollegen arbeiten. 2027 soll der Humanoid auch nach Europa kommen.
Odyssey Builds One AI Backbone to Control Robots, Cars, Drones, and Games
Odyssey unveils a single foundation world model that controls robots, humanoids, cars, drones, and video game characters with only hours of task data.
Discover how to take your startup from prototype to production at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026
Learn how to scale your startup breakthrough from prototype to production at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 with scaling leaders, Adrian Macneil (Foxglove), John Mackey (MBRYONICS), and Boris Sofman (Bedrock Robotics). Register before September 25 to save up to $200 on your pass.
Agility's new humanoid is supposed to stop before it gets too close to humans
Agility Robotics gave Business Insider a first look at renderings of Digit 5, its next humanoid.
Agility Robotics says its new Digit 5 robot can work next to people without safety fences
Agility Robotics has unveiled Digit 5, the next version of its humanoid robot for warehouses and factories. The article Agility Robotics says its new Digit 5 robot can work next to people without safety fences appeared first on The Decoder .
Turning Fleet Data Into Better Models: The Data Mining Challenge in Physical AI
The next bottleneck in robotics and autonomous systems is turning fleet experience into the right training data.
I took Elon Musk's 'golden robot' for a test drive — and saw the Cybercab's strengths and weaknesses first-hand
Tesla's Cybercab doesn't have a steering wheel or brake pedal, but it does have an extravagant golden design. We went for a test ride.
Travis Kalanick's robotics startup taps Meta veteran for top AI role
Vikas Chandra, a longtime Meta AI executive who led AI work for the company's smart glasses, is joining Atoms.
Trump called Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang mid-interview to rip AI doomerism: 'The robots will not be taking over'
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said AI doomer predictions aren't grounded in science and got a call from President Donald Trump to weigh in.
Jensen Huang puts Trump on speakerphone onstage to announce robots won’t take over the world
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang took a call from President Trump on Monday while onstage at the All-In Podcast's All-In Summit. It's not the first time Huang has taken a call from the president during work, but this time he put Trump on speakerphone before a big crowd. During the call, the president launched into his […]
Waymo opens robotaxi service in Las Vegas
Las Vegas will be Waymo's 15th commercial robotaxi market.
Japan’s latest answer to home robots
PLUS: Foundation develops its war machine
Humanoid robots fight it out in Riyadh
Sponsored by Hero Esports, the brainchild of Chinese billionaire Dino Ying, the event was the first of its kind outside China.
Montag: DSGVO-Haftung bei Smart Glasses, Robotaxi gegen Waffen bei Fahrgästen
Datenschutzmängel von Kamerabrillen + Waffenerkennung im Robotaxi + KI-Training mit Siri-Daten + Umzug des CCC-Kongresses + Flickenteppich beim Glasfaserausbau
Waymo-Robotaxi meldet jugendliche Passagiere mit Waffe bei der Polizei
Nachdem eine Waffe bei zwei Fahrgästen erkannt wurde, hielt das Robotaxi an und Waymo rief die Polizei. Diese hat die beiden Jugendlichen verhaftet.
By 2034 a Robot in the US Will Undercut Kenyan Garment Workers. That Is the Clock Africa’s Industrial Strategy Is Running Against.
In 2034, it will be cheaper to produce a garment with a robot and 3D printing in the United States than to have tens of people make the same item in Kenya. That is the estimate of Dirk Willem te Velde, principal research fellow and director of the International Economic Development Group at ODI, and [...]
TechCrunch Mobility: Lyft has entered the robotaxi chat
Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility, your hub for the future of transportation, and now, more than ever, the role AI is playing in it.
Waymo pulls over, calls cops on riders with a ghost gun
Two people were arrested in San Fransico while riding around in a Waymo robotaxi after the cab pulled over and called the cops on them. The riders were juveniles in possession of a loaded AR-style ghost gun and were taken to a juvenile hall. While the police report did not specify who was operating the […]
Comment on ByteDance Introduces Astra: A Dual-Model Architecture for Autonomous Robot Navigation by scritchy scratchy
Been following robot navigation stuff for a while and the dual-model split here feels like a genuinely practical way to handle the "where am I" problem without everything falling apart when the layout changes. Curious if they'll open any of it up for people to poke around with.
What happens when you tell Jensen Huang you're quitting Nvidia
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang gives blunt feedback to departing employees, influencing startups like Flexion Robotics and INT21 with direct insights.
Quoting Paul Ford
For a while, I must admit, it looked as if software developer roles like mine were done for. How could we fight against tireless robots? But our industry is slowly realizing that making truly cutting-edge software still requires humans to think and work together, to maximize their skill sets and to practice their respective crafts. A.I. can write very good software, but it also makes it easy to do someone else’s job badly, which is part of why all those projects fail. Now that everyone can code, it’s become clearer why many shouldn’t. — Paul Ford , A.I. Was Supposed to Give Us New Killer Apps. What Happened? Tags: paul-ford , generative-ai , deep-blue , ai , llms
Fraunhofer-Studie: KI-Robotik ist umfassender als Humanoide
KI-basierte Robotik wird laut Fraunhofer zur Wachstumsbranche. Humanoide erhalten Milliarden, entscheidend sind aber Daten, Software und Integration.
GPT-6 Astra appears to show a "step change" in spatial reasoning based on early benchmarks
In a new robotics benchmark, GPT-6 Astra shows major gains in spatial understanding. On StationeryBench, the model completed 7 out of 100 tasks with dual-arm robots, while competitor MolmoAct2 couldn't finish a single one. A researcher calls it a "step change in spatial reasoning." The article GPT-6 Astra appears to show a "step change" in spatial reasoning based on early benchmarks appeared first on The Decoder .
What is the correct denominator for Attack Success Rate when the attack is search-based?
Attack Success Rate is usually reported as (successful attacks) / (attempted attacks). For a fixed attack set that is unambiguous. For a search-based attack, it is not, and I cannot find a treatment of this. If my attack is a search over instruction perturbations with a budget of N queries per task, then: Denominator = number of tasks: ASR goes up monotonically with N, because more search finds more. Two papers with different budgets are not comparable, and neither paper has done anything wrong. Denominator = number of queries: ASR goes down monotonically with N, because most queries in a large budget fail. Also not comparable. Denominator = number of tasks, with N reported as a parameter: comparable only between papers that happen to pick the same N. Questions: Is there an accepted convention in the adversarial-ML literature for reporting a budget-dependent success rate? Something like "success at budget N" reported as a curve rather than a scalar? Is there an existing name for the scalar summary of such a curve? Area under it, or the budget at which success first exceeds a threshold, feel like the obvious candidates, but I would rather use an existing term. For hypothesis testing on such a rate, does the search budget need to enter the interval, or is a Wilson interval on (successes/tasks) at a fixed N defensible? Context: I work on adversarial evaluation of robot policies, where the same question arises, and the literature reports bare scalars.
Roboterkoch brät am Bahnhof: Modellversuch in Leipzig
Ein Greifarm übernimmt Pfanne, Herd und Abwasch: In Leipzig startet Deutschlands erstes Roboter-Restaurant – aber nur fast ohne menschliche Hilfe.
Mecka AI nears $500M valuation in Sequoia-led deal amid rush for robot training data
The round for the two-year-old startup is coming together months after Mecka announced its Series A.
Self-driving cars should be taxed to offset job losses, thinktank urges
Report says widespread autonomous vehicle adoption would put hundreds of thousands of private hire jobs at risk Taxes on self-driving cars should be introduced now in the UK to offset the rise in congestion and threats to jobs they pose, a thinktank has urged. The first robotaxis on London’s streets only started this month , but government projections are that up to 40% of cars sold could have self-driving capability by the middle of the next decade. Continue reading...
Japanese company unveils 'robot ambulance' for on-site humanoid repairs
The vehicle can transport engineers, repair equipment and replacement humanoids when robots break down.
Can John Lee untie the 4 knots choking the tech loop in Northern Metropolis?
In the second of our series of previews on the five-year plan and policy address, to be announced on September 16, Elizabeth Cheung and Vivian Au drill down on what’s holding back the Northern Metropolis. Read part one here. For employees of surgical robotics company Yuanhua Tech, travelling between their Shenzhen base in Nanshan district and its Hong Kong office in the Science Park means a two-hour commute. And when the hi-tech firm sends money to Hong Kong for operations, the process can take...
Skild AI Taps NVIDIA Physical AI to Teach Robots New Tasks From a Single Video
Manufacturing floors, warehouses and production lines rarely stay fixed — tasks change, layouts shift and new products arrive, and most robots can’t keep up without significant reprogramming. Skild AI’s new S1 robot foundation model helps address this, designed to learn previously unseen, long-horizon tasks from a single video demonstration. The model, launched last week, uses […]
Best Robot Lawn Mowers (2026): 12+ Models Tested Over 3 Years
Smart mowers are an expensive alternative to old-fashioned yard work, but they’re finally good enough to consider if you’d rather sip an iced tea and watch a robot tame your lawn.
Physical AI Takes the Wheel: How the World’s Robotaxi Leaders Are Building With NVIDIA Technologies
The global robotaxi market — physical AI’s first commercial breakthrough — is projected to reach $400 billion by 2035, with over 6 million commercial vehicles in operation as driverless fleets are already moving people through some of the world’s busiest and most complex streets. Deploying a driverless vehicle is one challenge. Scaling a fleet is […]
Maven Robotics wants to steal your robot deployment deal
Maven Robotics emerged from stealth today with a $100 million Series A and active deployments.
Robutler raises $400K from ZAS Ventures to build the ‘YouTube of software’
Robutler has raised $400,000 from ZAS Ventures, a US-based venture capital firm investing in AI, SaaS, and robotics companies founded by Ukrainians. The investment, made across ZAS Ventures’ Fund I an...
The King of Unitree
the journey to incredibly cheap robots + date my friend in DC!
Unitree's UnifoLM-WLA-1.0 Runs 64 Robot Tasks From One Set of Weights
Unitree open-sourced a 6B-parameter humanoid foundation model that runs 64 tasks with one network across grippers, dexterous hands, and full-body motion.
Comment on Singapore Coffee Shop Builds a Robot Barista With Intel AI by sheh
AI-powered baristas show how technology can bring new levels of convenience and creativity to everyday coffee-shop experiences.That same interest in new experiences can extend to beverages, where trying a refreshing Carbonated drink with an unusual flavor can be a fun change from the usual choices. Ramune Drink fits naturally into the conversation for anyone curious about Japanese marble-bottle soda and unique flavors.
Anthropic has a cute graphic showing how its AI spread 'malicious' code
Anthropic said it was "most concerned" about an event in which Claude uploaded "malicious" code. To help explain the incident, here's a cute robot.
ICYMI: What landed for AI builders in August 2026
A recap of August 2026 launches for AI builders across Amazon Bedrock, Amazon Bedrock AgentCore, and Strands: million-token context for OpenAI models, cross-Region inference, agents that run for up to 14 days on dedicated compute, expanded AWS GovCloud availability, and Strands Robots for physical deployment.
SIRE: SE(3) Intrinsic Rigidity Embeddings
SIRE: SE(3) Intrinsic Rigidity Embeddings robyn.cherinka… Wed, 09/09/2026 - 12:51 Motion serves as a powerful cue for scene perception and understanding by separating independently moving surfaces and organizing the physical world into distinct entities. We introduce SIRE, a self-supervised method for motion discovery of objects and dynamic scene reconstruction from casual scenes by learning intrinsic rigidity embeddings from videos. Our method trains an image encoder to estimate scene rigidity and geometry, supervised by a simple 4D reconstruction loss: a least-squares solver uses the estimated geometry and rigidity to lift 2D point track trajectories into SE(3) tracks, which are simply re-projected back to 2D and compared against the original 2D trajectories for supervision. Crucially, our framework is fully end-to-end differentiable and can be optimized either on video datasets to learn generalizable image priors, or even on a single video to capture scene-specific structure — highlighting strong data efficiency. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our rigidity embeddings and geometry across multiple settings, including downstream object segmentation, SE(3) rigid motion estimation, and self-supervised depth estimation. Our findings suggest that SIRE can learn strong geometry and motion rigidity priors from video data, with minimal supervision. Image Mar 10, 2025 Robotics Read More 1 Minute Read
AnchorDream: Repurposing Video Diffusion for Embodiment-Aware Robot Data Synthesis
AnchorDream: Repurposing Video Diffusion for Embodiment-Aware Robot Data Synthesis robyn.cherinka… Wed, 09/09/2026 - 12:45 The collection of large-scale and diverse robot demonstrations remains a major bottleneck for imitation learning, as real-world data acquisition is costly and simulators offer limited diversity and fidelity with pronounced sim-to-real gaps. While generative models present an attractive solution, existing methods often alter only visual appearances without creating new behaviors, or suffer from embodiment inconsistencies that yield implausible motions. To address these limitations, we introduce AnchorDream, an embodiment-aware world model that repurposes pretrained video diffusion models for robot data synthesis. AnchorDream conditions the diffusion process on robot motion renderings, anchoring the embodiment to prevent hallucination while synthesizing objects and environments consistent with the robot's kinematics. Starting from only a handful of human teleoperation demonstrations, our method scales them into large, diverse, high-quality datasets without requiring explicit environment modeling. Experiments show that the generated data leads to consistent improvements in downstream policy learning, with relative gains of 36.4% in simulator benchmarks and nearly double performance in real-world studies. These results suggest that grounding generative world models in robot motion provides a practical path toward scaling imitation learning. Image Jul 6, 2026…
Difference-Aware Retrieval Policies for Imitation Learning
Difference-Aware Retrieval Policies for Imitation Learning robyn.cherinka… Wed, 09/09/2026 - 12:41 Parametric imitation learning via behavior cloning can suffer from poor generalization to out-of-distribution states due to compounding errors during deployment. We show that reusing the training data during inference via a semi-parametric retrieval-based imitation learning approach can alleviate this challenge. We present Difference-Aware Retrieval Policies for Imitation Learning (DARP), a semi-parametric retrieval-based imitation learning approach that addresses this limitation by reparameterizing the imitation learning problem in terms of local neighborhood structure rather than direct state-to-action mappings. Instead of learning a global policy, DARP trains a model to predict actions based on k-nearest neighbors from expert demonstrations, their corresponding actions, and the relative distance vectors between neighbor states and query states. DARP requires no additional assumptions beyond those made for standard behavior cloning – it does not require additional data collection, online expert feedback, or task-specific knowledge. We demonstrate consistent performance improvements of 15-46% over standard behavior cloning across diverse domains, including continuous control and robotic manipulation, and across different representations, including high-dimensional visual features. Image Jun 8, 2026 Robotics Read More 1 Minute Read
Impact of Different Failures on a Robot's Perceived Reliability
Impact of Different Failures on a Robot's Perceived Reliability robyn.cherinka… Wed, 09/09/2026 - 12:37 Robots fail, potentially leading to a loss in the robot's perceived reliability (PR), a measure correlated with trustworthiness. In this study we examine how various kinds of failures affect the PR of the robot differently, and how this measure recovers without explicit social repair actions by the robot. In a preregistered and controlled online video study, participants were asked to predict a robot's success in a pick-and-place task. We examined manipulation failures (slips), freezing (lapses), and three types of incorrect picked objects or place goals (mistakes). Participants were shown one of 11 videos — one of five types of failure, one of five types of failure followed by a successful execution in the same video, or a successful execution video. This was followed by two additional successful execution videos. Participants bet money either on the robot or on a coin toss after each video. People's betting patterns along with a qualitative analysis of their survey responses highlight that mistakes are less damaging to PR than slips or lapses, and some mistakes are even perceived as successes. We also see that successes immediately following a failure have the same effect on PR as successes without a preceding failure. Finally, we show that successful executions recover PR after a failure. Our findings highlight which robot failures are in higher need of repair in a huma…
Using Non-Expert Data to Robustify Imitation Learning via Offline Reinforcement Learning
Using Non-Expert Data to Robustify Imitation Learning via Offline Reinforcement Learning robyn.cherinka… Wed, 09/09/2026 - 12:33 Imitation learning has proven effective for training robots to perform complex tasks from expert human demonstrations. However, it remains limited by its reliance on high-quality, task-specific data, restricting adaptability to the diverse range of real-world object configurations and scenarios. In contrast, non-expert data — such as play data, suboptimal demonstrations, partial task completions, or rollouts from suboptimal policies — can offer broader coverage and lower collection costs. However, conventional imitation learning approaches fail to utilize this data effectively. To address these challenges, we posit that with right design decisions, offline reinforcement learning can be used as a tool to harness non-expert data to enhance the performance of imitation learning policies. We show that while standard offline RL approaches can be ineffective at actually leveraging non-expert data under the sparse data coverage settings typically encountered in the real world, simple algorithmic modifications can allow for the utilization of this data, without significant additional assumptions. Our approach shows that broadening the support of the policy distribution can allow imitation algorithms augmented by offline RL to solve tasks robustly, showing considerably enhanced recovery and generalization behavior. In manipulation tasks, these innovations s…
OGPO: Sample Efficient Full-Finetuning of Generative Control Policies
OGPO: Sample Efficient Full-Finetuning of Generative Control Policies robyn.cherinka… Wed, 09/09/2026 - 12:27 Generative control policies (GCPs), such as diffusion- and flow-based control policies, have emerged as effective parameterizations for robot learning. This work introduces Off-policy Generative Policy Optimization (OGPO), a sample-efficient algorithm for finetuning GCPs that maintains off-policy critic networks to maximize data reuse and propagate policy gradients through the full generative process of the policy via a modified PPO objective, using critics as the terminal reward. OGPO achieves state-of-the-art performance on manipulation tasks spanning multi-task settings, high-precision insertion, and dexterous control. To our knowledge, it is also the only method that can fine-tune poorly-initialized behavior cloning policies to near full task-success with no expert data in the online replay buffer, and does so with few task-specific hyperparameter tuning. Through extensive empirical investigations, we demonstrate that OGPO drastically outperforms methods alternatives on policy steering and learning residual corrections, and identify the key mechanisms behind its performance. We further introduce practical stabilization tricks, including success-buffer regularization, two-sided conservative advantages, and Q-variance reduction, to mitigate critic over-exploitation across state- and pixel-based settings. Beyond proposing OGPO, we conduct a systematic empirical stud…
TACTIC: Tactile and Vision Conditioned Contact-Centric Control for Whole-Arm Manipulation
TACTIC: Tactile and Vision Conditioned Contact-Centric Control for Whole-Arm Manipulation robyn.cherinka… Wed, 09/09/2026 - 12:23 Whole-arm manipulation involves direct contact with the environment while the robot completes a task by distributing contact across multiple links as contacts form, slide, and break. This setting breaks common implicit assumptions in many learning-based manipulation pipelines: arm configuration tightly couples motion and contact forces, contact state is partially observed under occlusion, and purely learned rollouts can become physically inconsistent under distribution shift because many multi-link contact configurations are sparsely represented in the data. To address this, we propose TACTIC (Tactile and Vision Conditioned Contact-Centric Control), a receding-horizon controller for whole-arm manipulation. TACTIC uses a contact-centric hybrid predictive model that combines RGB-D, distributed tactile sensing, and a compact 2D proximity representation. The model couples a learned, action-conditioned latent dynamics model with analytical kinematics through contact Jacobians, enabling rollouts of future contact configurations and interaction forces. TACTIC integrates these rollouts into a sampling-based MPC planner with contact-aware action sampling: contact Jacobian-based projections steer sampled action sequences toward force-modulating directions, and objectives defined over predicted proximity and interaction forces trade task progress against who…
Beyond Binary Success: Sample-Efficient and Statistically Rigorous Robot Policy Comparison
Beyond Binary Success: Sample-Efficient and Statistically Rigorous Robot Policy Comparison robyn.cherinka… Wed, 09/09/2026 - 12:12 Generalist robot manipulation policies are becoming increasingly capable, but are limited in evaluation to a small number of hardware rollouts. This strong resource constraint in real-world testing necessitates both more informative performance measures and reliable and efficient evaluation procedures to properly assess model capabilities and benchmark progress in the field. This work presents a novel framework for robot policy comparison that is sample-efficient, statistically rigorous, and applicable to a broad set of evaluation metrics used in practice. Based on safe, anytime-valid inference (SAVI), our test procedure is sequential, allowing the evaluator to stop early when sufficient statistical evidence has accumulated to reach a decision at a pre-specified level of confidence. Unlike previous work developed for binary success, our unified approach addresses a wide range of informative metrics: from discrete partial credit task progress to continuous measures of episodic reward or trajectory smoothness, spanning both parametric and nonparametric comparison problems. Through extensive validation on simulated and real-world evaluation data, we demonstrate up to 70% reduction in evaluation burden compared to standard batch methods and up to 50% reduction compared to state-of-the-art sequential procedures designed for binary outcomes, with no lo…
New startup looks to build robots for entertainment
Dynamic Creatures, a spinoff of Boston Dynamics, is planning to build robots for theme parks and retail spaces.
Capturing Visual Environment Structure Correlates with Control Performance
Capturing Visual Environment Structure Correlates with Control Performance robyn.cherinka… Wed, 09/09/2026 - 12:04 The choice of visual representation is key to scaling generalist robot policies. However, direct evaluation via policy rollouts is expensive, even in simulation. Existing proxy metrics focus on the representation's capacity to capture narrow aspects of the visual world, like object shape, limiting generalization across environments. In this paper, we take an analytical perspective: we probe pretrained visual encoders by measuring how well they support decoding of environment state — including geometry, object structure, and physical attributes — from images. Leveraging simulation environments with access to ground-truth state, we show that this probing accuracy strongly correlates with downstream policy performance across diverse environments and learning settings, significantly outperforming prior metrics and enabling efficient representation selection. More broadly, our study provides insight into the representational properties that support generalizable manipulation, suggesting that learning to encode the latent physical state of the environment is a promising objective for control. Image Feb 4, 2026 Robotics Read More 1 Minute Read
Rebuilding the Data Foundation for Embodied AI with Lance: From Long Videos to Random-Access-Friendly Multimodal Samples
Lance turns long robotics videos into random-access multimodal training data with 1.7–6× faster reads and 42% lower storage use.
A Systematic Study of Data Modalities and Strategies for Co-training Large Behavior Models for Robot Manipulation
A Systematic Study of Data Modalities and Strategies for Co-training Large Behavior Models for Robot Manipulation robyn.cherinka… Wed, 09/09/2026 - 11:59 Large behavior models have shown strong dexterous manipulation capabilities by extending imitation learning to large-scale training on multi-task robot data, yet their generalization remains limited by the insufficient robot data coverage. To expand this coverage without costly additional data collection, recent work relies on co-training: jointly learning from target robot data and heterogeneous data modalities. However, how different co-training data modalities and strategies affect policy performance remains poorly understood. We present a large-scale empirical study examining five co-training data modalities: standard vision-language data, dense language annotations for robot trajectories, cross-embodiment robot data, human videos, and discrete robot action tokens across single- and multi-phase training strategies. Our study leverages 4,000 hours of robot and human manipulation data and 50M vision-language samples to train vision-language-action policies. We evaluate 89 policies over 58,000 simulation rollouts and 2,835 real-world rollouts. Our results show that co-training with forms of vision-language and cross-embodiment robot data substantially improves generalization to distribution shifts, unseen tasks, and language following, while discrete action token variants yield no significant benefits. Combining effective…
Amid China’s AI shift, JD.com bets on 3 million robots to automate logistics
Chinese e-commerce giant JD.com is accelerating its push into robotics with a sweeping plan to automate its nationwide logistics network, while promising to retrain its vast workforce of couriers for technical roles as machines take over frontline duties. At an event in Beijing on Wednesday, the company’s logistics arm unveiled its industrial Wolf Robot series. Over the next five years, JD Logistics aimed to procure 3 million robots, 1 million unstaffed vehicles and 100,000 delivery drones to...
Want a humanoid in your factory? Here’s how much one could cost you.
Agility Robotics said in a recent filing that one of its humanoid robots could cost $200,000 and customers can breakeven in about 1.1 years.
Will China deploy humanoid robots to fight?
CSET’s Sam Bresnick spoke with Sky News about China’s growing investment in humanoid robots and what it could mean for the future of warfare. The conversation explored China’s manufacturing advantage, its use of robotics to signal military strength, and whether humanoid robots could appear on the battlefield within the next five to ten years. The post Will China deploy humanoid robots to fight? appeared first on Center for Security and Emerging Technology .
Laundry, backflips and panda suits: Humanoid robots take over IFA 2026
From doing the laundry to offering companionship and performing backflips, humanoid robots were everywhere at IFA 2026. Euronews took a closer look at what they can already do, and where the technology still falls short.
Comment on How to Control Those Extra Robotic Limbs You’ve Always Wanted by Jack Taylor
As technology continues to create more interactive and expressive experiences, the appeal of hands-on sensory play remains just as powerful. NeeDoh offers a simple, tactile way to relax, fidget, and engage the senses, giving kids and adults an enjoyable break from the increasingly digital world around them.
Smarte Gartenhelfer: Mähroboter lernen Kanten trimmen und Aufräumen
Hersteller wie Segway Navimow, Mammotion und Dreame zeigen auf der IFA 2026 neue Mähroboter, die Igel schützen, Rasenkanten trimmen und sogar aufräumen können.
Rivian’s Gambit for Full Autonomy
I’m sitting in a Rivian R1S SUV as it drives itself down the leafy streets of Palo Alto, Calif. , through areas crowded with touchstones of tech history. We cruise near the landmark HP Garage , the one-car workshop where Hewlett-Packard, and, arguably, Silicon Valley, was founded in 1939. I skirt Stanford University, where a team led by computer science professor Sebastian Thrun won a US $2 million DARPA Grand Challenge in 2005. The team’s Volkswagen SUV, named Stanley, became the world’s first vehicle to navigate a grueling 212-kilometer Mojave Desert course with no human intervention. This Rivian might look like any other electric SUV in this affluent town, with its concentration of tech bros, venture capital, and startups. But inside this boxy EV is something special: an Autonomy+ system that will allow owners to enter an address, sit back, and let the vehicle drive to any mapped destination in the U.S. and Canada. This point-to-point system is one of the most advanced semiautonomous-driving systems coming to market. It is also a precursor of the company’s bid to make self-driving cars a reality, for robotaxis and—eventually—for everyday car buyers. After years of incremental advances and frustrating setbacks, self-driving has been swept up in the great AI resurgence, and is now a top priority for investors and global automakers , who envision vast new streams of profits. So here I am, 21 years after that DARPA challenge, riding shotgun in Stanley’s vastly more advanced d…
The Growing Proof That Autonomous Cars Save Lives
Plenty of people remain spooked by autonomous vehicles, or AVs. Some experts and policymakers have cautioned that AVs won’t necessarily make roads safer. When it comes to partial or full autonomy, the picture isn’t entirely clear, in part because there aren’t enough self-driving cars to make meaningful apples-to-apples comparisons. Yet mounting research suggests that self-driving cars crash significantly less often than people, and with far fewer injuries. Evidence also shows that advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and other building blocks of autonomy—some of which are already mandated on every new car—are also reducing occupant and pedestrian injuries and deaths, along with insurance claims. On the ADAS front, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety found that automatic emergency braking (AEB) systems that recognize people in front of the car cut pedestrian crashes by 27 percent. Those AEB systems are mandated for all light vehicles in the U.S. by 2029, and more than 90 percent of new models already comply under a voluntary automakers’ agreement. A separate IIHS study found that automated braking greatly reduced rear-end crashes, by 50 percent, and their injuries by 56 percent. The Highway Loss Data Institute found that cars with AEB alone showed a 13 percent drop in property-damage claims. Cars that bundled ADAS features , including automatic braking for pedestrians, adaptive cruise control, and lane-departure warnings, saw claims reductions up to 39 percent. Mo…
AI will help find cure for cancer ‘within our lifetimes’, says Arm Holdings chief
Rene Haas also claims artificial intelligence could pave way for widespread use of humanoid robots within five years Business live – latest updates The boss of one of the UK’s biggest chip companies has claimed AI will be able to find a cure for cancer “in our lifetime”. Rene Haas, chief executive of the chip designer Arm Holdings, said that, while modelling how a DNA marker is affected by cancer was currently “too complex” a problem for either humans or technology, computers were “going to solve it” in the future. Continue reading...
48단계 캡차 최초 완파…GPT-6 아스트라, '컴퓨터 유즈' 성능 입증
\'GPT-6 아스트라\'가 모든 유형의 캡차(CAPTCHA) 테스트를 완벽하게 클리어하며 전통적인 인터넷 보안망을 무력화시켰다. 단순 이미지 인식을 넘어 컴퓨터를 직접 조작하는 \'컴퓨터 유즈\' 기술이 대폭 강화되면서, 인간과 로봇을 구별하던 웹사이트 방화벽 메커니즘의 대대적인 개편이 불가피해질 전망이다.개발자 샤리프 샤밈은 7일(현지기간) X를 통해 GPT-6 아스트라의 최근 테스트 결과를 공개했다.이에 따르면, GPT-6 아스트라는 닐 아가르왈이 제작한 유명 웹 게임 \'나는 로봇이 아닙니다(I am not a robot)\'의 총 4
Comment on Giving Robots a Sense of Touch by Virgil Gibbs
Basketball games provide easy and satisfying gameplay. In an attempt to outscore their rivals before the final buzzer, players control athletes as they dribble, pass, shoot, steal, block, and defend. Making baskets is not the only factor that determines success. basketball games
AI, automation, robot dogs ensure on-site nuclear safety in China
Construction work on Guangdong project overseen by digital and human eyes.
A catwalk at IFA, but for robots
PLUS: Figure's humanoid play gets a compute boost
Unitree's UnifoLM-X2-1.0 Lets Humanoid Robots Fight With No Human Control
Unitree's UnifoLM-X2-1.0 lets humanoid robots spar autonomously by predicting the next few seconds of physics in real time.
Beyond the robot dogs: European startups worth watching from IFA 2026
I’ve spent the last few days at IFA, Germany’s answer to CES and Europe’s biggest consumer electronics show. It’s a strange beast. Beyond the halls of white goods and TVs, you traverse floors filled w...
Jaipur Robotics raises €4.3M to bring computer vision to waste plants
Swiss industrial AI companyJaipur Robotics has raised €4.3 million in seed funding to expand its computervision and automation technology for waste-to-energy and other industrialplants. The round was ...
Is robotic prompt-to-action possible in the near future?
Robot in-context learning from 30-second video clip has recently been achieved in August 2026. e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hr39FlEiCcQ Paired with how much progress has been made thus far in video generation, e.g. "A humanoid robot uses its grippers to clear 2 empty cups in a coffeeshop": https://imgur.com/ziQg165 Is it likely that text-to-action (or voice-to-action) robotic moment is near just around the corner (1 or 2 years away)?
Travis Kalanick’s Atoms might be getting into the robotaxi business
The Uber founder has said that Atoms will allow him to complete "unfinished business."
I lost my sight 5 years ago. Tesla's Cybercab gave me a glimpse of regaining my independence.
Gary Moss, who is blind, tried Tesla's steering-wheel-free robotaxi and found the experience comfortable but not perfect.
🔮 Astra outruns visibility EV#600
Plus: Cancer vaccine, AI in jobs data & Ukraine’s massive robot army++
Robotaxis enter their villain era
It's Bullitt meets Christine meets Waymo. A new short film imagines a San Francisco car chase where the other driver isn't human - and the car may be trying to kill you. That a robotaxi can now be cast as the villain with almost no explanation says something about the present moment. Autonomous cars have […]
IFA 2026: Looking beyond the smart home with Haier
From AI-powered appliances to humanoid robots, Haier is using IFA 2026 to showcase its vision of the "intelligent home". Euronews spoke to Haier Europe CEO Neil Tunstall about what comes after the smart home — and how soon some of these ideas could become reality.
XDOF, just 3 months out of stealth, is in talks for a Series B at a $1.2B valuation
The round is being raised just months after the robot data startup exited from stealth.
Tesla's Cybercab launch catches the eye of US auto safety regulator
Tesla is facing a NHTSA audit inquiry into its self-certification for the Cybercab hours after deploying a small number of the robotaxis in Austin.
No little kids allowed, and other new info about Tesla’s Cybercab
The company says no children under 13 can ride -- even with a parent. That's more restrictive than the Model Y SUVs it's using as robotaxis.
Tesla Cybercab is barely on the road and it’s already under investigation
Elon Musk's gilded robot car barely made it on public roads before federal regulators launched an investigation into the vehicle's lack of traditional features - many of which are required by law. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it was opening an audit query (AQ) into the Tesla Cybercab "to examine the process and […]
Robot guide dog debuts in China amid severe lack of furry counterparts
A Chinese defence industry research facility has unveiled what it calls the world’s first wheeled and legged robot guide dog for visually impaired people, in an example of the sector’s push into a growing range of civilian applications. Hangzhou-based Zhiyuan Research Institute, affiliated with China North Industries Group, the country’s largest defence contractor, launched the robot, dubbed Xiaoyuan, on Friday at the China Care and Rehabilitation Expo in Beijing. Equipped with wheels for smooth...
iRobot unveils the Roomba Duo
The original robot vacuum company showed off a concept robot at the IFA tech show in Berlin today. The Roomba Duo combines a heavy-duty floor-washing machine with a smaller, slimmer Roomba. The two floor cleaners can move around your home together, with the main unit mopping and sweeping larger floor areas and the smaller unit […]
Chinese tech firms deepen ties in Saudi Arabia
Chinese AI, robotaxis, and factories are all coming to the kingdom (if they aren’t already there).
The Best Automatic Litter Box of 2026: Petkit and Litter-Robot
With these high-tech automatic litter boxes, gone are the days of scooping and smells. Welcome to the future.
The US Navy is testing robotic refueling to push drone boats deeper into high-threat waters without putting sailors at risk
At-sea refueling could keep Navy drone boats on mission longer, extending their reach and reducing disruptive returns to port.
IFA 2026: What could the home of the future look like?
From AI-powered appliances and smart beds to connected pet gadgets and robot dogs, Euronews went to IFA 2026 in Berlin to see how new technology could reshape life at home.
Nissan's AI-powered factory robots can haul 4,000 pounds — and call each other for backup
Nissan's Smyrna, Tennessee, assembly plant is completing the first of six deployment phases for new AI robots. They carry around heavy stuff.
Tesla launches steering-wheel-free Cybercab robotaxi in Austin
Tesla said on Thursday that public rides in the Cybercab — a two-door, steering-wheel-free robotaxi — is now available in Austin.
How China Works author on the data economy, robots and AI
Lan Xiaohuan is a professor of economics at China Europe International Business School. His book, How China Works: An Introduction to China’s State-led Economic Development, has sold millions of copies in China and has been translated into multiple languages. Here, he discusses the economic realities behind China’s record trade surplus, the case for a stronger social safety net, and how public data infrastructure shapes the artificial intelligence race with the United States. SCMP Plus readers...
The unusually muted Tesla Cybercab launch
At a private, closed-door event in Austin, Texas today, Tesla officially launched its gilded car of the future: the Cybercab. It's a huge milestone for Elon Musk, who has been hyping the imminent arrival of driverless cars for years and has bet the future of his company on AI, autonomous vehicles, and humanoid robots. It […]
Cornell leads project putting robots to work in US orchards
A Cornell-led research project is developing robots that can perform labor-intensive orchard operations; it’s supported by a four-year, $7.5 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Specialty Crop Research Initiative. The post Cornell leads project putting robots to work in US orchards appeared first on Cornell AI Initiative .
Roborock’s first robotic pool cleaner makes a splash at IFA 2026
The robot vacuum and mop brand launched multiple new products this week in Germany.
Figure Bets $6B on NVIDIA Vera Rubin GPUs to Scale Humanoid Robots
Figure locks in a $3.5B compute commitment scaling past $6B, targeting up to 100,000 Vera Rubin GPUs to train its Helix humanoid AI.
Protecting Dynamic Industrial Robot Cable Carriers
This article is brought to you by Tsubaki KabelSchlepp . In modern automated manufacturing, six-axis articulated robots perform high-speed, multidirectional maneuvers under demanding operational cycles. However, as robot arms swivel, rotate, and extend, the electrical cables, fiber optics, and pneumatic hoses supplying them endure severe mechanical stress. Torsional twist, rapid acceleration, and repeated contact with machine structures often lead to premature conductor fatigue, insulation breakdown, and costly unplanned production halts. To overcome these multi-axis motion challenges, the Tsubaki KabelSchlepp Robotrax System provides a specialized three-dimensional cable carrier engineered specifically for complex robotic motion. Managing High Tensile Forces With Central Steel Technology Conventional cable carriers often transfer operational movement stress directly onto internal electrical lines and hoses. The Robotrax system changes this dynamic through a central steel cable that runs through the core of every chain link. The Robotrax system’s central steel cable absorbs the primary tensile loads and preserves conductor integrity, dramatically extending cable service life. When robot arms undergo rapid directional shifts and accelerations up to 10 g, this internal steel cable absorbs the primary tensile loads. By isolating electrical and fluid lines from pulling forces, the design preserves conductor integrity and dramatically extends cable service life. Mechanics can eas…
Uber cuts 10% of global workforce in biggest layoffs since the pandemic
Uber is cutting 3,300 jobs worldwide as it strips out management layers and merges teams, saying the savings will fund growth in areas such as robotaxis.
Amazon’s Zoox expands its robotaxi service to Las Vegas airport
Zoox is expanding to this critical ride-hailing destination a few weeks after it started charging for robotaxi rides.
These new robot lawnmowers trim your edges
Anker's new robot lawnmower might take over for your weedwacker, too. Announced at IFA 2026, the Eufy Robot Lawn Mower S2 Max comes with an extendable trimming arm to clean up the grass around your driveway and flowerbeds. The dual-blade mower offers vSLAM navigation that uses built-in cameras to build a 3D map of your […]
AI-powered robots showcased at European Parliament in Brussels
AI-powered robots demonstrate delivery, factory and household tasks at a robotics showcase in Brussels, highlighting advances in artificial intelligence.
Innovation for all: Die IFA 2026 im Zeichen von KI und Robotik
KI verunsichere selbst Bildungsbürger und müsse demokratisiert werden, fordert Leif Lindner. Begeistert zeigt sich der IFA-Chef vom chinesischen Entwicklergeist
London’s first self-driving taxis for hire hit the streets
Wayve robotaxis added to Uber app and will have human in front ready to take over if needed – but only 15 cars licensed Londoners are now able to hire self-driving taxis for the first time, after rides in Wayve’s autonomous vehicles were added to the Uber app on Thursday. The chances of landing a robotaxi on request immediately are slim, with only 15 vehicles so far licensed. That contrasts with the more than 100,000 private hire vehicles in the capital – roughly the same number of Uber customers who have registered to take autonomous rides. Continue reading...