While my bluesky is primarily meant for professional and research-related posts, I wanted to share this resource for anyone who is wondering how they might take action to support Minnesotans: www.standwithminnesota.com. Please share with your networks and help out if you can.

Stand With Minnesota Donation Directory

Stand With Minnesota is a hub for supporting, learning, and taking action to support Minnesotans impacted by ICE and federal enforcement.

standwithminnesota.com

This is why work on human-robot interaction, robot autonomy, and privacy is important. How long will the teleoperator need to be involved to collect enough robot data for the robot to be autonomous? It may be far longer than promised (see Tesla and their decade-old promise of autonomous vehicles)

Joanna Stern@joannastern.bsky.social · 9mo ago

Today you can pre-order the 1X Neo humanoid robot for $20K. As in, it will come live in your house in 2026.* I spent a lot of time with Neo. You do not want to miss this wild video and column. *Also, a teleoperator might need to peer into your house. Like I said, wild. www.wsj.com/tech/persona...

Forget modeling every belief and goal! What if we represented people as following simple scripts instead (i.e "cross the crosswalk")? Our new paper shows AI which models others’ minds as Python code 💻 can quickly and accurately predict human behavior! shorturl.at/siUYI%F0%9F%...

I like how this viewpoint emphasizes how AI can have both profound, transformative (and potentially risky) effects on society while not fixating on a catastrophic scenario -- it definitely makes it easier, as the article states, "to grapple with the weirdness and disruption that is happening today."

Alison Gopnik@alisongopnik.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Understanding AI as a social technology www.programmablemutter.com/p/understand...

Companies are pouring billions into humanoid #robotics. In a new @spectrum.ieee.org ‬ op-ed, #UWAllen professor @mayacakmak.bsky.social wonders whether people would really welcome such robots into their homes — and looks forward to taking one for a spin for science. spectrum.ieee.org/home-humanoi...

Do People Really Want Humanoid Robots in Their Homes?

Investors are pouring billions into humanoid robots, but do people actually want them in their homes?

spectrum.ieee.org

I’m presenting our paper “Preserving Sense of Agency: User Preferences for Robot Autonomy and User Control across Household Tasks” at IEEE RO-MAN 2025! We challenge a core assumption in robotics: do users want autonomous household robots with third party teleoperators? 🧵 arxiv.org/abs/2506.19202

Preserving Sense of Agency: User Preferences for Robot Autonomy and User Control across Household Tasks

Roboticists often design with the assumption that assistive robots should be fully autonomous. However, it remains unclear whether users prefer highly autonomous robots, as prior work in assistive rob...

arxiv.org

Still catching up on my notes after my first #cogsci2025, but I'm so grateful for all the conversations and new friends and connections! I presented my poster "When Empowerment Disempowers" -- if we didn't get the chance to chat or you would like to chat more, please reach out!