Chelsea Finn: This is the State of the Art in Robotics
Y Combinator Startup Podcast
1 DAYS AGO
Chelsea Finn: This is the State of the Art in Robotics
Chelsea Finn: This is the State of the Art in Robotics

Y Combinator Startup Podcast
1 DAYS AGO
Shownote
Shownote
Robots can already fold laundry, make espresso, clean kitchens, and assemble
things. The harder problem is getting them to do those tasks reliably, for long
periods of time, without a human babysitting them.
At Startup School 2026, Physical Intelligence cofounder Chelsea Finn explains
what it takes to build general-purpose robots that work in the real world. She
shares how reinforcement learning pushed robot throughput up 2x, how their
systems can run autonomously for hours, and why she believes robotics is
entering its GPT era: moving from specialized models toward general-purpose
systems that can work across tasks, robots, and environments.
Transcript: https://www.ycrootaccess.com/p/chelsea-finn-on-the-next-decade-in
Highlights
Highlights
This conversation explores the technical and practical challenges of building robots that can learn broadly, adapt to unfamiliar situations, and operate independently in the physical world.
Chapters
Chapters
How reinforcement learning helps robots recover, remember, and work reliably
00:00Can diverse data teach one robot to handle many different tasks?
22:56Why robotics is approaching general-purpose intelligence—and what still holds it back
38:04The next priorities: faster execution, safer behavior, and dependable real-world performance
49:55Transcript
Transcript
Chelsea Finn: Today, I'm going to be talking about the state of the art of Physical Intelligence. And in particular, two years ago, I founded a company called Physical Intelligence. And we're really interested in how we can basically develop any robot, or ...
