Geordie Rose, co-founder and CEO of Sanctuary AI, discusses humanoid robot autonomy, dexterous hands, and the economic and philosophical questions around automation with Jason on This Week in Startups.
Rose argues that general intelligence develops through sensing and acting in the physical world, where each situation is different. Sanctuary AI treats the robot as a way to study intelligence and concentrates on building hands that can manipulate objects.
Sanctuary's hands use sensors to detect qualities such as temperature and slipping, which Rose says are essential for tasks like turning a key. He describes training small behaviors, or micro-policies, by teleoperating the robot and collecting demonstrations, then using those experiences to predict sequences of actions.
Rose shows Phoenix being controlled by a person wearing haptic gloves and viewing through the robot's perspective. Sanctuary's initial market is automotive manufacturing, where robots could connect machines by moving parts and materials; Rose said the company aimed to begin scaling deployments around mid-2026.
Rose rejects the idea that automation reduces the total amount of work, arguing that new capabilities create different jobs and raise wages. He expects robots to spread beyond factories over time and cites the internet and podcasting as examples of industries that emerged after new technologies.
Rose compares learned behaviors to piano keys and the mind to a system that composes future actions, while treating conscious experience as a separate mystery. He also argues that AI might eventually help explain consciousness, and favors discussing technology's risks while continuing to build.
Briefs summarise talks and interviews; timestamps open the video at that moment. Claims in a talk are the speaker's own.
Geordie Rose, co-founder and CEO of Sanctuary AI, discusses the company’s Phoenix humanoid robot, its AI and hardware strategy, and its early commercial applications with John Koetsier on NEXT’s TechFirst.
Geordie Rose, CEO of Sanctuary AI and founder of D-Wave and Kindred AI, discusses language models, minds and consciousness, quantum computing, and building general-purpose humanoid robots with Alex Conconi.
Jeremy Fishel, principal scientist and researcher at Sanctuary AI, discusses dexterous hands and tactile sensing with Jeff Rick at the Humanoids Summit in Mountain View, California.
Suzanne Gildert, CTO of Sanctuary AI, discusses the company’s humanoid robot and its path toward general-purpose work with a Bloomberg Originals host in Vancouver.
