As I prepared our swarm robots for a high school demo after a day of Special Ops testing in the hills, my confidence in our shared control system was shaken by an eerie detection—one that multiple robots saw, but no human could. What began as a technical mystery teasing at ghosts ended with a lesson in humility and fog, reminding me that the key to solving autonomy’s paradox isn’t eliminating humans—it’s embracing collaboration and the right metaphor for interaction.
Tag: Autonomy
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The Robot and the White Lady of Ramona
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The Ultimate Test for AI
As AI surpasses humans in mimicking empathy and contextual understanding, even outperforming doctors in perceived compassion, it raises deep questions about what truly makes us human. Amid humorous and heartfelt anecdotes, the author realizes that while AI may master “cool,” only human empathy—raw, irrational, and profound—can preserve our shared humanity.
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Meet Your Robot Overlords
As AI spreads across military robotics and corporate call centers alike, the greatest threat isn’t a robot uprising—it’s the slow erosion of human agency, empathy, and accountability under the guise of automation. Whether battling a killer drone or a broken phone bill, our future hinges not on whether AI is strong or smart, but whether we can still find—and be—those rare humans who fight to preserve the soul in the machine.
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Are We Playing Chess or Dodgeball?
Despite massive investment and hype, scalable AI systems modeled on cloud-based optimization and data alone continue to hit real-world limits, especially in chaotic, unstructured environments more like dodgeball than chess. The key to unlocking robust, adaptive AI lies not in discarding human-crafted primitives but in embracing them—just as biology seeds learning with instinctual behaviors, robotics must begin with embodied, low-level intelligence that enables true situated learning and agile response.
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Less Autonomy, More Teaming
True scalability in robotics won’t come from full autonomy or direct control, but from mixed-initiative teaming—a collaborative, context-aware system where humans and AI dynamically share control based on strengths, performance, and mission needs. By prioritizing humanity-centered design and distributed intelligence over centralized command, we can enable resilient swarming behaviors that are not only more effective but also more ethical in complex, real-world environments.
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Is Software Eating the World?
The dream of fully autonomous systems, built solely on software and individual intelligence, is faltering in the real world—where chaos, edge cases, and scale demand infrastructure that supports swarm intelligence and shared situational awareness. To achieve meaningful autonomy at scale, we must blend software with intelligent, distributed infrastructure that enables real-world positioning, coordination, and flow—a new kind of ecosystem where hardware isn’t a crutch but the nervous system of the future.
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The Coming Swarm…
From leading the first 100-robot swarm to pioneering early lethal autonomy prototypes, I’ve seen both the promise and peril of merging AI, robotics, and combat. While AI offers powerful tools to support warfighters and evaluate battlefield behavior, the true path forward lies not in removing the human, but in designing systems that amplify human insight through shared, mixed-initiative control with ethically aware machines.
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Digital Workers of the World Unite!
At the inaugural Digital Workers Forum in Silicon Valley, industry leaders debated AI agent autonomy, customization, and the corporate drive to replace—not augment—human workers, while conveniently avoiding questions about ethics or human experience. Despite the flashy AI avatars we see online, the real conversation is unfolding in drab rooms full of humans deciding who profits, who gets replaced, and how much bias gets embedded into enterprise AI.
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Becoming Swarm: How Our Approach to Self-Driving Must Change
After two decades of promises, autonomous vehicles have not delivered on safety, efficiency, or emissions, largely due to misplaced trust in centralized cloud systems and isolated onboard AI. To achieve the future we want—swift, synchronized, and safe mobility—we must adopt swarm intelligence, focusing on relative positioning, shared flow, and measurable safety rather than waiting for perfect autonomy from tech giants.
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Rethinking Autonomy: The Power of swarm intelligence
The collapse of major self-driving ventures stems not from a lack of intelligence, but from a flawed, cloud-dependent model that ignored the chaos of real-world conditions. True progress requires shifting from centralized path-planning to swarm intelligence—a decentralized, adaptive approach that prioritizes flow over control.