CV legend Jitendra Malik: robots are wasting 3D structure signal, and real2sim2real deserves human credit
JitendraMalikCV · x · 2026-09-21
The argument
Berkeley professor Jitendra Malik reflects on 3D/4D reconstruction:
- It's one of computer vision's great achievements, rooted in photogrammetry and multi-view geometry (Hartley & Zisserman), fused with deep learning over the last decade; recognition-derived shape priors (e.g., HMR for humans) and recent systems like VGGT and SAM 3D deliver impressive results.
- Much robotics work in the learning era ignored 3D structure, which he calls "wasting valuable signal" since robots operate in the 3D world.
- He welcomes the rediscovery of real2sim2real via Astra, citing years of projects from his own group, and asks that credit go to human researchers, not just AI models.
Related event: Berkeley's Jitendra Malik: Robots Wasting Valuable 3D Structural Signals(2 posts)→
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