Physical AI

[JeffKeryk]

Perhaps some of you have seen the discussion @OVERKILL and I have had around "Physical AI".

What is this thing? From the Google:
"Physical AI involves machines using sensors to perceive and interact with the real world, employing AI techniques like computer vision and reinforcement learning to understand physics, react to environments, and perform physical tasks through actuators. Unlike digital AI, physical AI creates a closed-loop system where the system makes decisions and directly affects its physical environment, enabling applications such as autonomous vehicles, humanoid robots, and smart factories."

If you have any interest, here is a video from Morgan Stanley surrounding Physical AI. I think you might enjoy it and perhaps get you thinking...
Team, this is beyond thick vs thin. Way beyond.

 

[ctechbob]

Let's hope Asimov's 3 rules are onboard.

 

[wwillson]

Investing in robot tech and manufacturing companies could be the next big thing. Hold on to your hats, they are coming and fast.

 

[JeffKeryk]

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang stated, "The next wave of AI is physical AI," and that this wave will involve "AI that understands the laws of physics, AI that can work among us". He described this new form of AI as possessing physical world common sense, such as understanding object permanence, friction, and cause and effect, enabling robots and autonomous systems to interact with and navigate the real world effectively.

I read somewhere Huang describes Physical AI something like the difference between AI and a dog is, if you roll a ball off the table, AI may have no sense of where it went; it in some Metaverse? A dog will recognize the table, deal with it and go around it to find the ball.

Physical AI is the dog.

 

[SonofaBoomer]

Just wait until it starts scheming to defeat it's predefined limits. In my view, impossible to avoid when military purposes are driving the tech, also inevitable.
https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/18/openais-research-on-ai-models-deliberately-lying-is-wild/

 

[PandaBear]

Got a presentation and a good meal from a chip company last week and one of their showcase is about physical AI. Without getting involved with NDA the general concept of physical AI is that, instead of using a lot of math to do actual simulation that is too expensive in calculation, AI will do educated guess in a way that is more "common sense" based on those training it has gotten before.

So, will it improve the world incrementally? Absolutely. Will it make the impossible happen from what we haven't done before? I don't think they are completely new like how FFT has changed wireless communication or floating gate leads to flash memory and changed digital camera.

BTW, they are renaming some of the chips that would have been called DSP into AI now. I was confused when they were presenting why AI module was significantly improving speed until they start showing me how they were just doing FFT and to use those feature they have to limit to 32 or 64 bits, instead of custom stuff. Then suddenly I realized AI chip is just doing a bunch of multiply and add and they are literally the same as what we called DSP 2 decades ago...

All the hard things are in the training. Those chips are still really amazing though, literally what a whole rack of servers now down into one chip to support a whole cell tower, inside the antenna.