John Carmack: no robot today can change batteries in a jack-o-lantern
ID_AA_Carmack · x · 2026-10-27
John Carmack pushed back on robot-apocalypse fears sparked by flashy demos with a reality check: no robot in the world can currently change the batteries in a jack-o-lantern — a chain of mundane tasks including walking outside to pick it up, opening the battery drawer, tearing open a pack of AA batteries, extracting a precision screwdriver from its case, unscrewing four tiny screws that need a hard press-and-twist, and popping the old batteries out.
He notes you could build a specialist robot for that today, but replicating the full range of human capabilities remains a very long way off. Near-term doomer scenarios, he jokes, should stop at "secretly controlling humanity" rather than "wiping humanity out."
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