Physical AI is for humans
I heard the term Physical AI for the first time a month ago, and since then I’ve been hearing it everywhere. I attended Tough Tech Week’s Imagination in Action Physical AI Summit to really understand what it means.
We are designing machines that can sense and act in the physical world, assess a situation, and decide their own next steps. These products almost feel self-efficacious. At the summit, physical AI was demonstrated mainly through robotics.
And while the technology seems to be evolving faster than we are, what stayed with me was how powerfully and intentionally physical AI is being applied, with people’s well-being and quality of life at the core of these inventions.
Heather Carroll of Path Robotics painted a stark picture of welding in the US today, a shortage of skilled welders and hazardous working conditions. Their robots can take on dangerous work, reducing the risks people face on the job. Canan Dagdeviren, an associate professor at MIT, discussed her work making breast ultrasound technology more accessible for tumor detection. The potential impact on women’s health she described during the lightning round was so inspiring I wanted to clap, but it was mid-discussion.
Russ Tedrake spoke about the launch of Walden Robotics’ humanoids, which work alongside people on factory floors, and about where the real complexity lies… not in the capability of the technology, but in the successful application of it.
Across the summit, the picture was clear: physical AI may sound like an abstract technical term, but what I saw was a movement to apply this technology where people truly need help.
Where design comes in
The opportunities and gaps ready for physical AI solutions are across all industries, with seemingly endless use cases.
Physical AI products are being invented to support human functions and become part of how we live and work. Our lives, rituals, and processes already exist. In a sense, we are reverse engineering physical AI into them, into our spaces, routines, onto our bodies, pretty much everywhere.
And that requires careful design consideration and sensitivity to the people involved. What should these products look like, and how should they function? How should they respond to people, operate, and be used? What systems do they need to work within and alongside as we introduce them into our ecosystems?
My team at Fresco has had the pleasure of working with Familiar Machines & Magic this past year on their Familiar, an endearing robot designed to offer companionship and become part of daily life. Our work has focused on the detailed design execution required for a robot to coexist with people in their homes while staying true to the team’s vision. It’s a daily reminder that technical capability is only half the job. The other half is making the experience feel natural to the person sharing their home with a Familiar.
What should we be building?
The most powerful talk I saw at the summit was by Colin Angle, co-founder of Familiar Machines & Magic. He started by asking us to consider what we should be building and whether the momentum and inertia of technology are leading us somewhere we have thoughtfully chosen to go. He acknowledged a deeply human concern that often sits beneath discussions of advancing technology, one that many of us share, whether we voice it or not: “Does technology make humans matter less?”
During his talk, I kept thinking of one of my favorite poems, Kahlil Gibran’s On Work, which says, in part:
“You work that you may keep pace with the earth and the soul of the earth. For to be idle is to become a stranger unto the seasons, and to step out of life’s procession, that marches in majesty and proud submission towards the infinite.”
Work is part of how we participate in the world. We invent, build, create, and care for each other. As machines take on more of what we do, I wonder what that will mean for the purpose and connection we find in doing it.
I don't know the answer. But I do think we have a responsibility to ask these questions as we develop the technology, not after.
Will physical AI help us be better? Do better? Evolve? I believe it can, and that is where design has a role to play.
We need to look holistically and thoughtfully at each product, understanding its users and the people and environments it affects. Otherwise, we risk making something technically capable while missing the opportunity to make it useful, meaningful, and good for the people around it.
Physical AI is for humans, and design is how we will make sure it stays that way.
Written by Danielle Shaheen, Co-Founder and Managing Director at Fresco Design
Thank you for a great event: Imagination in Action, MIT CSAIL, MassRobotics, TEDxMIT, The Engine, Massachusetts AI Coalition
