Redefining Robotics with Carolina Parada

In this episode, Hannah is joined by Carolina Parada, Senior Director and Head of Robotics at Google DeepMind. They explore the recent leap forward in robotic capabilities, highlighting advancements in multimodal understanding and embodied reasoning, which enable robots to interact with the physical world with unprecedented generality. They dig into the two-system approach - ‘slow and fast thinking‘ - that enables both complex reasoning and rapid, reactive movements. Using examples from robots learning dexterous tasks such as tying shoelaces to adapting to entirely new scenarios in real-time, Parada highlights how key breakthroughs in understanding, dexterity, and control are now coming together to rapidly advance robotics unlike ever before.