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.
