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Particles of Thought

Particles of Thought

AI Robots

Jul 23, 2026 · 23m

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About this episode

Daniela Rus has built a robot you can swallow, and that is one of the less surprising things her lab is working on. At MIT's CSAIL, she is leading research at the frontier where artificial intelligence meets the physical world, and the results are unlike anything people have imagined. Daniela joins Hakeem to explore what it will really take for machines to move, reason, and interact the way humans do. Why are today's humanoid robots mechanically impressive but intellectually limited? What is the difference between physical AI and embodied intelligence, and why does it matter? From origami surgeons, to robots inspired by the octopus, this is a conversation about the machines of the future…