Definition
Human–robot interaction (HRI) studies how people communicate with and control robots — via text, voice, video demonstration, gesture, or other modalities — and designs interfaces that make physical AI usable without specialized teleoperation skill.
Key Points
- enigma thesis (July 2026): interface problem may matter more than pure model capability for adoption
- Public remote-control experiments used as data-collection platforms (100+ robots)
- Contrasts with capability-first labs focused on dexterity/foundation models (e.g. atoms)
- Related to embodied-ai and cognitive-robotics