# Are Robots About to Level Up?  ## About - Author: Steven Strogatz - Title: Are Robots About to Level Up? - Tags: #articles - URL: https://www.quantamagazine.org/are-robots-about-to-level-up-20240814/ ## Highlights Well, for me, building robots is about a few different aspects. It’s about designing the body. It’s about building the control system and the learning and reasoning system. And it’s also about the capabilities. And, to me, the most exciting projects are the ones that open new possibilities, that are doing things for the very first time, that don’t exist yet. So in order to get there, you really have to ask big and bold questions. When my students arrive at MIT, I ask them to think about what it is that they want to be able to tell the world after a few years in the Ph.D. program. And we go through this exercise where I pretend to be a genie that grants research results. And I ask them to ask the genie for the results that they want to write about and talk about at the end of their PhD. And then I tell them, “Not bold enough, not big enough.” And so we gradually get to some big, crazy ideas that we then end up working on together. - Note: This is a great way to think about projects because it encourages you to aim high. ---