18-year robotics veteran: the gap between demo intelligence and field intelligence never closed
yongqianme · x · 2026-09-09
The author started building robots in 2006 and returned in 2024 to survey robot dogs, wheeled platforms, and humanoids across factories, shops, and entertainment venues.
- In the last cycle, smart people came for harder reasons: labor shortages, cycle-time guarantees, expensive imported arms. Machines were dull and nobody pretended they were intelligent.
- Today the videos are better and the fundraising stories better, but the gap between demo intelligence and field intelligence did not close.
- Most newcomers know this and come anyway — the money is there. The complicated part is what money does to people: recalculating what counts as worth it, falling behind, and what a generation is not allowed to do.
A reflective industry essay from someone who has lived through two robotics cycles.
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