Can You Build Physical AI Without AI? — with Laura Modiano, Sophia Bendz, Tomaž Štolfa & Kim Dang

​A discussion on where AI really touches physical AI, and where it's still more promise than product.

• ​AI in building the robot aka simulation, agentic coding, generative hardware design. Arguably where AI has the biggest real impact today: cutting testing from months to weeks, designing components.

• ​AI running the robot aka the "brain": VLMs for perception and reasoning, and the newer end-to-end models going straight from what the robot sees to how it moves. The exciting, headline-grabbing layer. How much of this is deployed vs. demo?

• ​What that does to the hardware — if the intelligence gets good and cheap, does the physical body get to be dumber and cheaper? Where does that hold (good-enough tasks) vs. break (precision tasks where no brain saves a bad actuator)?

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​Speakers:

​Laura Modiano — OpenAI.

​Tomaž Štolfa — Co-founder & CEO, Sunrise Robotics. Building robotics without assuming legs or a humanoid form factor are necessary.

​Kim Dang — Planet A.