YC Decoded podcast: how coding agents are generalizing into robot-use agents
ycombinator · x · 2026-09-26
YC's new Decoded episode features the founders of Waddle Labs and Robocurve discussing robot-use agents: general-purpose models that can control different robots, write policies, and learn physical tasks with little robot-specific training.
- Framed by a recent essay from MIT professor Philip Isola arguing general models may win in robotics
- Covers the lineage from code-as-policies and vision-language-action models to general LLMs, plus the Bitter Lesson applied to robotics
- Discusses harnesses and evals as a form of robot intelligence, with a live demo of Astra controlling a robot
- Closes on how close we are to general-purpose robots
Related event: YC Decoded Explores Robot-Use Agents: Coding Agents Generalize to Robotics(6 posts)→
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