Carmack reality-checks robot hype: no robot on Earth can change a jack-o-lantern's batteries
GlenBradley · x · 2026-10-27
Pushing back on doomsday readings of flashy robot demos, John Carmack offers a reality check: no robot in the world can yet change the batteries in a jack-o-lantern — even with a robot-friendly door handle it might walk outside, carry the lantern back in, and open the drawer with your batteries, but the fine manipulation after that remains out of reach.
Replying, Glen Bradley says he's working on novel intelligent tasking models embedded in a continuous cognitive framework to automate exactly such behaviors, arguing the problem is now down to mechanical dexterity and device availability.
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