This Revolution Will Not Be Scripted

Mihai Jalobeanu - 11/13/2025

While everyone is mesmerized by the humanoid circus, a quieter revolution is underway. Generalist Embodied AI running on inexpensive hardware is unlocking new application domains. This changes everything.

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The “Oh S**t” Curve of AI

Mihai Jalobeanu - 10/29/2025

The last decade of AI arrived in shockwaves. What are the next ones, and when might they arrive? Breakthroughs like AlphaGo, ChatGPT, Sora2 were massive and unexpected leaps in capability that felt like pure magic. I argue that these moments follow a predictable rhythm: the “Oh S**t” Curve. Understanding this pattern can help foresee the next disruption.

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What Rodney Brooks Got Wrong About Robotic Dexterity

Mihai Jalobeanu - 10/06/2025

Rodney Brooks' latest essay, “Why Today’s Humanoids Won’t Learn Dexterity”, is fascinating, insightful and thought-provoking. Yet, while I completely agree that haptic sensing is crucial to robotic dexterity, I find his analysis fundamentally flawed.

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Before VLAs Had a Name: My 2020 Forecast on General-Purpose Robotics

Mihai Jalobeanu - 09/23/2025

I ran across this talk I presented at MSR’s 2020 Disruptive Technology Review, a highly curated annual event for the senior leadership of Microsoft. The event is meant to highlight non-obvious technological advances and opportunities for the next decade. Below is the complete script of one of the final iterations on my talk. Five years later, my predictions and timeline seem to hold well!

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5 predictions for Embodied AI in 2025

Mihai Jalobeanu - 01/06/2025

5 predictions for Embodied AI in 2025:

1. Teleoperation goes mainstream
2. YouTube for robots
3. GPT1 for robotic dexterity
4. The (temporary) rise of neuro-symbolic models
5. A self-taught robot

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