| Not yet due |
Rodney Brooks | Prediction |
1 Jan 2026 |
Over the next ten years there will be a lot of activity developing guard rails around LLMs to make them useful.
Rodney Brooks · Prediction · 1 Jan 2026 |
AI safety and alignment |
| Not researched |
Rodney Brooks | Factual |
1 Jan 2026 |
No technology has ever come close to scaling at the rate a humanoid robot company CEO claimed: being in 10% of US households by 2030.
Rodney Brooks · Factual · 1 Jan 2026 |
Economics and markets |
| Not researched |
Rodney Brooks | Factual |
1 Jan 2026 |
Brooks said his team developed a circuit for a collaborative robot that needed no active power and used a motor's back current as a strong brake to stop arms falling when power was cut.
Rodney Brooks · Factual · 1 Jan 2026 |
Their own work or organisation |
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
It is roughly four years behind Cruise and two years behind Waymo, though it is not clear that it has the capital available to scale as…
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
Otherwise, no matter how well the technology works, the dream of driverless taxis is going to be shelved for many years.
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not researched |
Rodney Brooks | Factual |
1 Jan 2026 |
As of early 2026 no self-driving company claims to have SAE level 5 autonomy.
Rodney Brooks · Factual · 1 Jan 2026 |
Technology |
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
We are peak popular hype in all of robotics, AI, and machine learning.
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
The declarations being made about humanoid robots are just not plausible.
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not researched |
Rodney Brooks | Factual |
1 Jan 2026 |
Starship is SpaceX's two-stage super heavy rocket designed to put about 150 tons into orbit, with components under development since 2012 and extensively redesigned.
Rodney Brooks · Factual · 1 Jan 2026 |
Other |
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
I fear that I may have been overly optimistic about many of these
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
I pre-emptively disagree with them.
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not yet due |
Rodney Brooks | Prediction |
1 Jan 2026 |
The trends do not look like EVs will reach 12% of US new car sales in 2027, even with a huge uptick.
Rodney Brooks · Prediction · 1 Jan 2026 |
Economics and markets |
| Not yet due |
Rodney Brooks | Prediction |
1 Jan 2026 |
Brooks seriously doubts a human will land on Mars before 2040, and says the earliest Mars settlement will not happen before 2050.
Rodney Brooks · Prediction · 1 Jan 2026 |
Other |
| Mostly true |
Rodney Brooks | Factual |
1 Jan 2026 |
Blue Origin is under contract with NASA to land two astronauts on the Moon for a 30-day stay in 2030 using Blue Moon Mark 2.
Rodney Brooks · Factual · 1 Jan 2026 |
Other |
| Not yet due |
Rodney Brooks | Prediction |
1 Jan 2026 |
Brooks says he is confident that he is right on his points (a) and (b) from his blog post, at least for the next ten years; the material does not say what (a) and (b) are.
Rodney Brooks · Prediction · 1 Jan 2026 |
AI capabilities |
| Unresolvable |
Rodney Brooks | Prediction |
1 Jan 2026 |
Humanoid robots may not turn out to be the future of robotics.
Rodney Brooks · Prediction · 1 Jan 2026 |
AI capabilities |
| Mostly true |
Rodney Brooks | Factual |
1 Jan 2026 |
Once pick orientation and vacuum gripper are selected, suction grasping is open loop, relying on suction force and compliance of gripper and object.
Rodney Brooks · Factual · 1 Jan 2026 |
AI capabilities |
| Not researched |
Rodney Brooks | Factual |
1 Jan 2026 |
Norway reached 89% fully electric vehicles among new cars sold in 2024, largely due to taxes on gasoline car purchases.
Rodney Brooks · Factual · 1 Jan 2026 |
Economics and markets |
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
I was too optimistic.
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
The idea is to add more responsibility to police and fire fighters to fix the inadequacies of the partial-only autonomy strategy for…
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
They report not a peep about what work has been done to design or build the lander.
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not researched |
Rodney Brooks | Factual |
1 Jan 2026 |
Unlike other crew and booster return solutions, Starship must carry a full set of engines plus landing propellant into orbit just for landing.
Rodney Brooks · Factual · 1 Jan 2026 |
Other |
| Not researched |
Rodney Brooks | Factual |
1 Jan 2026 |
Falcon 9 launches at a sustained rate of more than three per week, all booster landing attempts succeed, and boosters typically fly over 20 times.
Rodney Brooks · Factual · 1 Jan 2026 |
Other |
| Not yet due |
Rodney Brooks | Prediction |
1 Jan 2026 |
Weekly suborbital paying-customer flights (Blue Origin) may become feasible by 2028 if customer demand exists.
Rodney Brooks · Prediction · 1 Jan 2026 |
Other |
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
2026 promises to be a big year for humanity and the Moon.
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
I prefer to think of myself as being a realist.
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not researched |
Rodney Brooks | Factual |
1 Jan 2026 |
Brooks thinks that much of the current work at companies, large and small, is trying to abstract out the embodiment of a robot, turning it into a machine that is merely situated.
Rodney Brooks · Factual · 1 Jan 2026 |
AI capabilities |
| Not researched |
Rodney Brooks | Factual |
1 Jan 2026 |
Blue Moon Mark 1 and Mark 2 share control systems and avionics.
Rodney Brooks · Factual · 1 Jan 2026 |
Other |
| Not researched |
Rodney Brooks | Factual |
1 Jan 2026 |
Human-operated ride services such as taxi companies, Uber and Lyft do not need external services for cleaning, charging and fixing vehicles because a human is with the car at all times.
Rodney Brooks · Factual · 1 Jan 2026 |
Economics and markets |
| Not researched |
Rodney Brooks | Factual |
1 Jan 2026 |
Real progress has been made in a field Brooks describes as high impact but narrow use, the field covered by Peter Norvig's recent report on new offerings.
Rodney Brooks · Factual · 1 Jan 2026 |
AI capabilities |
| Not researched |
Rodney Brooks | Factual |
1 Jan 2026 |
Tesla's original Austin robotaxi fleet was 30 vehicles, with at least seven accidents reported by Tesla by October 2025.
Rodney Brooks · Factual · 1 Jan 2026 |
Technology |
| Not yet due |
Rodney Brooks | Prediction |
1 Jan 2026 |
Brooks does not think any robot able to do the last 10 yards of delivery from the street will be deployed this decade, and perhaps not even demonstrated.
Rodney Brooks · Prediction · 1 Jan 2026 |
AI capabilities |
| Not yet due |
Rodney Brooks | Prediction |
1 Jan 2026 |
Human spaceflight will change from its stasis in 2026.
Rodney Brooks · Prediction · 1 Jan 2026 |
Other |
| Unresolvable |
Rodney Brooks | Prediction |
1 Jan 2026 |
Rodney Brooks said he does not think Jonathan's company will reach its goal of general purpose humanoid robots even within Jonathan's lifetime.
Rodney Brooks · Prediction · 1 Jan 2026 |
AI capabilities |
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
In 2025 Blue Origin made clear that it is not to be dismissed.
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not researched |
Rodney Brooks | Factual |
1 Jan 2026 |
Lilium declared bankruptcy in December 2024 and again in February 2025, after employees had worked for some time without pay.
Rodney Brooks · Factual · 1 Jan 2026 |
Economics and markets |
| Not researched |
Rodney Brooks | Factual |
1 Jan 2026 |
The Starship lunar lander stage will use most of its fuel reaching Earth orbit and so cannot reach the Moon without being refueled.
Rodney Brooks · Factual · 1 Jan 2026 |
Other |
| Not researched |
Rodney Brooks | Factual |
1 Jan 2026 |
Suction grippers use plastic suction cups that are themselves compliant.
Rodney Brooks · Factual · 1 Jan 2026 |
AI capabilities |
| Not researched |
Rodney Brooks | Factual |
1 Jan 2026 |
Sunita Williams is the only active astronaut not committed to other current or upcoming missions who has trained to fly on Starliner.
Rodney Brooks · Factual · 1 Jan 2026 |
Other |
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
The economic argument for them is compelling.
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
Being both situated and embodied is still a challenge to robots in the world.
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
If we are to do this with LLMs we will need to come up with a side mechanism beyond the token buffer
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not researched |
Rodney Brooks | Factual |
1 Jan 2026 |
Tesla's robotaxi service is not operational in the sense Waymo and Zoox are, and faces regulatory headwinds that Waymo and Zoox have long satisfied.
Rodney Brooks · Factual · 1 Jan 2026 |
Technology |
| Not yet due |
Rodney Brooks | Prediction |
1 Jan 2026 |
Putting humans on Mars will take much longer than putting a crewed colony on the Moon.
Rodney Brooks · Prediction · 1 Jan 2026 |
Other |
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
But I do keep tabs on promises that have been made.
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
I had no basis to make a prediction.
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Unresolvable |
Rodney Brooks | Prediction |
1 Jan 2026 |
Brooks said that press releases about two basic human-piloted capabilities, including a point-to-point test flight in Dubai, suggest to him that the company is still years away from operating an actual air taxi service.
Rodney Brooks · Prediction · 1 Jan 2026 |
Technology |
| Not yet due |
Rodney Brooks | Prediction |
1 Jan 2026 |
Private space stations may lead to more humans flying on orbital flights than the current roughly 28 per year.
Rodney Brooks · Prediction · 1 Jan 2026 |
Other |
| Not researched |
Rodney Brooks | Factual |
1 Jan 2026 |
The Artemis landing architecture uses SLS and Orion to take astronauts to lunar orbit.
Rodney Brooks · Factual · 1 Jan 2026 |
Other |
| Not yet due |
Rodney Brooks | Prediction |
1 Jan 2026 |
The current hype does not mean that results over the next decade will pay back the massive investments going into AI and robotics.
Rodney Brooks · Prediction · 1 Jan 2026 |
Economics and markets |
| Not yet due |
Rodney Brooks | Prediction |
1 Jan 2026 |
There will likely be a jump in the number of Blue Origin suborbital flights in 2026.
Rodney Brooks · Prediction · 1 Jan 2026 |
Other |
| Not researched |
Rodney Brooks | Factual |
1 Jan 2026 |
Rodney Brooks started building humanoid robots in his MIT research group in 1992.
Rodney Brooks · Factual · 1 Jan 2026 |
Their own work or organisation |
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
But do not fear. There are other companies on the very edge of succeeding.
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
Don’t hold your breath. They are not here. They are not coming soon.
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
That is not what level 4 promises.
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not yet due |
Rodney Brooks | Promise |
1 Jan 2026 |
Brooks will talk explicitly about the two technologies he has put in his five prediction topics, one of them robots with humanoid form, for each of the next ten years.
Rodney Brooks · Promise · 1 Jan 2026 |
AI timelines and forecasting |
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
Unfortunately the talkers are not the doers, and not the deployers, and not the people who have to solve real problems.
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not yet due |
Rodney Brooks | Prediction |
1 Jan 2026 |
Deployable robot dexterity will remain far worse than human hands beyond 2036.
Rodney Brooks · Prediction · 1 Jan 2026 |
AI capabilities |
| Not researched |
Rodney Brooks | Factual |
1 Jan 2026 |
Blue Origin's suborbital tourist flights are not its main business.
Rodney Brooks · Factual · 1 Jan 2026 |
Other |
| Unresolvable |
Rodney Brooks | Prediction |
1 Jan 2026 |
If both Waymo and Zoox fail, self driving car deployment in the US will grind to a halt.
Rodney Brooks · Prediction · 1 Jan 2026 |
Technology |
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
The Waymo blog post revealed another piece of strategy.
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not yet due |
Rodney Brooks | Prediction |
1 Jan 2026 |
The SpaceX Starship-based crewed Moon landing will not happen in 2027, and may never happen.
Rodney Brooks · Prediction · 1 Jan 2026 |
Other |
| Not yet due |
Rodney Brooks | Prediction |
1 Jan 2026 |
Brooks is doubtful that a new quantum error-correction method will emerge, be fully tested and reach production at scale within the next ten years.
Rodney Brooks · Prediction · 1 Jan 2026 |
Technology |
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
It is not clear whether it was a shortage of those gig workers, or a shortage of people in the Waymo remote operations center that caused…
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
Electrification levels of cars is a choice that a country makes.
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not researched |
Rodney Brooks | Factual |
1 Jan 2026 |
Current humanoid robots fail dangerously when in extended contact with a human being.
Rodney Brooks · Factual · 1 Jan 2026 |
AI capabilities |
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
This is not going to happen for many years, and SpaceX may not be the first to do it.
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not researched |
Rodney Brooks | Factual |
1 Jan 2026 |
Tesla announced in 2025 that it was starting a self-driving taxi service in Austin.
Rodney Brooks · Factual · 1 Jan 2026 |
Technology |
| Not researched |
Rodney Brooks | Factual |
1 Jan 2026 |
In its eleven flights so far, Starship has not had a goal of getting anything into orbit.
Rodney Brooks · Factual · 1 Jan 2026 |
Other |
| Not researched |
Rodney Brooks | Factual |
1 Jan 2026 |
Blue Origin flew seven suborbital flights in 2025, more than double the previous year, and announced weekly flights as its next goal without a firm date.
Rodney Brooks · Factual · 1 Jan 2026 |
Other |
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
At the very least expect turbulence, both political and technical, in getting astronauts landed on the Moon.
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not yet due |
Rodney Brooks | Prediction |
1 Jan 2026 |
Space station building will pick up markedly over the next few years in anticipation of the ISS's end.
Rodney Brooks · Prediction · 1 Jan 2026 |
Other |
| Not researched |
Rodney Brooks | Factual |
1 Jan 2026 |
Current generation Waymos need a lot of human help to operate, including remote operations staff, gig workers who fix vehicles, and staff who clean and charge cars.
Rodney Brooks · Factual · 1 Jan 2026 |
Technology |
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
I have talked to people who are in regular communication with people inside SpaceX.
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
THIS IS NOT DRIVERLESS.
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not researched |
Rodney Brooks | Factual |
1 Jan 2026 |
Waymo has announced it will expand to five more US cities during 2026: Miami, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Orlando.
Rodney Brooks · Factual · 1 Jan 2026 |
Technology |
| Unresolvable |
Rodney Brooks | Prediction |
1 Jan 2026 |
Companies that can control their LLMs will be able to deliver usable products.
Rodney Brooks · Prediction · 1 Jan 2026 |
AI safety and alignment |
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
I find people working on quantum computers are often a little squirrelly about whether their computer acts more like a digital or analog…
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not researched |
Rodney Brooks | Factual |
1 Jan 2026 |
A New Glenn 7x2 with reusable first stage is very nearly equivalent to Falcon Heavy with all three boosters reused.
Rodney Brooks · Factual · 1 Jan 2026 |
Other |
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
Without a clear statement from Waymo to the contrary, one must assume the same for them.
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Unresolvable |
Rodney Brooks | Prediction |
1 Jan 2026 |
Machine learning will not provide the force sensing and control capabilities needed for safe elder-care robots.
Rodney Brooks · Prediction · 1 Jan 2026 |
AI capabilities |
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
Those predictions so far have turned out to be more optimistic than how reality has unfolded.
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not researched |
Rodney Brooks | Factual |
1 Jan 2026 |
Linear threshold neurons, CNNs and backpropagation are the basis of modern neural networks.
Rodney Brooks · Factual · 1 Jan 2026 |
AI capabilities |
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
The summary is that my predictions held up pretty well, though overall I was a little too optimistic.
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
Clearly Agility and its Digit robot is not in the hype class that I am pushing back on — they are promising much less than general purpose…
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
How long they will take to move from initial laboratory explorations to viable scalable solutions is much longer than everyone assumes.
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
The end of Moore’s Law, at least the version that said we could reduce feature size on silicon by a factor two every year, opened up a new…
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
So what does this tell us? It says that there is plenty of room for mechanical design, and simpler computational embodied control for all…
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
As an engineer this architecture looks to me like trouble, and with an impossible future.
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not researched |
Rodney Brooks | Factual |
1 Jan 2026 |
Tesla's US electric vehicle sales in 2025 dropped by more than the rest of the market.
Rodney Brooks · Factual · 1 Jan 2026 |
Economics and markets |
| Not researched |
Rodney Brooks | Factual |
1 Jan 2026 |
The reusable New Glenn 9x4 beats Falcon Heavy on all measures even when all three Falcon Heavy boosters are expended.
Rodney Brooks · Factual · 1 Jan 2026 |
Other |
| Not researched |
Rodney Brooks | Factual |
1 Jan 2026 |
Rethink Robotics, founded in 2008, delivered thousands of Baxter and Sawyer robots, built in the US, to factories between 2012 and 2018.
Rodney Brooks · Factual · 1 Jan 2026 |
Their own work or organisation |
| Unresolvable |
Rodney Brooks | Prediction |
1 Jan 2026 |
In the US, Waymo and Zoox are the players that will determine whether self driving cars succeed or are abandoned.
Rodney Brooks · Prediction · 1 Jan 2026 |
Technology |
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
A bitter lesson, perhaps, for those who think that more data will solve everything.
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
Real robots that do real work in dynamic human occupied environments must be both situated and embodied.
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not researched |
Rodney Brooks | Factual |
1 Jan 2026 |
Tesla's self-driving taxis in Austin have a human in the passenger seat to intervene when there is a safety concern.
Rodney Brooks · Factual · 1 Jan 2026 |
Technology |
| Not researched |
Rodney Brooks | Factual |
1 Jan 2026 |
Falcon 9 launch numbers have grown at a sustained 38% year over year for eight years.
Rodney Brooks · Factual · 1 Jan 2026 |
Technology |
| Unresolvable |
Rodney Brooks | Prediction |
1 Jan 2026 |
What these companies are working towards is not happening, even at a tiny scale, anytime soon.
Rodney Brooks · Prediction · 1 Jan 2026 |
Technology |
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
More training doesn’t make things better necessarily. Boxing things in does.
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|
| Not checkable |
Rodney Brooks | Not checkable |
1 Jan 2026 |
The one thing we have all learned, or should have learned, is that the underlying mechanism for Large Language Models does not answer…
Rodney Brooks · Not checkable · 1 Jan 2026 |
|