Why AGI Might Need a Body First
Learning happens through action. What changes when AI can see, move, and learn in the world? Daniel Manary chats with Adeel Zaman, founder in stealth out of HF0, previously DOZR.
đââď¸ Hello! Arianne here, editor and producer of Artificial Insights, the podcast. Welcome! This is TL;DL where I write about what stood out to me in each episode, share some food for thought, and do a roundup of what happened and whatâs next for those of us who prefer to read.
Letâs dig into it!
This episode was a really fun one and it made me (briefly) wonder if weâre in a sci-fi world now.
Donât you just love it when interviews stretch your imagination?
See, when we talk about AI progress, we usually stay in the realm of screens, text, and software. But, what does intelligence look like when it has to act in the physical world, not just describe it?
Did you know that itâs possible?
đď¸ Just Interviewed: Adeel Zaman on giving AI bodies
âYouâd be surprised, if we walked into manufacturing facilities, into construction job sites, in any kind of physical space, and see how much of it is done by machine learning.
And itâs a very, very small percentage.
And I think, arguably, itâs probably one of the biggest unlocks we can do to improve our standard of living as a society.
Adeel Zaman entered the University of Waterloo at sixteen, earned national recognition in math and programming, and later co-founded DOZR, scaling it into a $40M+ construction marketplace across Canada. After years in deep learning research and startup building, he stepped back to start again. Something he admitted was difficult to do!
And this time, his focus was not software tools or dashboards⌠it was excavators.
In the interview, Adeel described working on what he calls embodied intelligence. AI systems that can see, reason, and act in the physical world. He started with construction equipment like excavators and skid steers, machines that already sit at the foundation of real-world work.
What made this conversation compelling was how grounded Adeelâs thinking stayed (see what I did there?). He spoke openly about cost, learning constraints, safety, and the long road between todayâs models and anything resembling general intelligence.
He also talked about real-life, talking mechs. Seriously. Check it out.
đĄ One Core Insight: Embodied intelligence may be a prerequisite for AGI
Adeel shared a belief that stood out to me because he framed it as a testable thesis, and not just something an AI and tech optimist would nonchalantly talk about.
He questioned whether we can reach something like a capable âwhite-collar workerâ AI using the knowledge-only training we do today. Todayâs models excel at question answering and short tasks. But long-horizon work, whether physical or digital, requires understanding context, constraints, and consequences over time.
Think about it: humans do not learn about the world only through language. We learn by acting in it. By bumping into limits. By adjusting after mistakes. Adeel suggested that grounding AI in physical interaction may not just help robotics, it might help intelligence itself generalize more reliably.
I admit, the thought gave me goosebumps.
He pointed to research showing that mixing very different kinds of data can improve performance across tasks. Poetry and code. Vision and language. In the same way, learning to move objects, navigate space, and respond to feedback could shape internal representations that pure text cannot.
Donât get me wrong. The takeaway isnât so much that humanoid robots are imminent. Itâs more that embodiment might be part of the missing ingredient for the kind of reasoning we keep asking current AI models to do.
đ One Key Clip: Why âwhy nowâ matters more than vision
In the bonus clip, Adeel explained how he evaluates whether an idea is worth building now.
He shared a story about Jeff Bezos in 1995. Bezos did not just see that the Internet existed. He saw that usage growth was exploding. That change in trajectory made a new category of companies viable, even if much of the infrastructure was still immature. Books were not perfect. They were simply the right shape for that moment.
It was quite inspiring.
𼥠One Takeaway: Intelligence needs a body, but safety needs intelligence
Daniel later reflected on the conversation in a LinkedIn post that clarified something important for me.
AI systems are powerful, but disembodied. Robots are embodied⌠but, technically, unaware. That gap is why industrial robots remain isolated and unsafe to work alongside.
Yes, the labor shortages Adeel and Daniel discussed were not abstract. They are already visible across construction and skilled trades in North America, and more severe in places like South Korea. Robots are going to be helpful, but are we willing to trust them around people? Should we be? And, what would it take?
đĽ Up Next: Josh MĂźller on how AI can change whatâs possible
In the next episode, Daniel is speaking with Josh MĂźller, director at the tech nonprofit Waha, about what it looks like to apply AI under real operational, ethical, and theological constraints.
If you are working in nonprofits, missions, or any environment where peopleâs safety matters more than convenience, this episode offered a grounded look at how AI can be used carefully, practically, and well.
⨠When intelligence meets the real world
This interview made me realize that the next frontier of intelligence isnât going to come about simply because weâve fed more human knowledge and data into our AI models. Weâre going to need to place that intelligence in the physical world eventually.
I donât know about you, but that leaves me feeling simultaneously excited and uncomfortable.
As always, thanks for listening. đ
P.S. Artificial Insights is a podcast on how AI is changing work, lifeâand us. Every other Friday, Daniel Manary sits down with leaders, thinkers, and builders in AI to have candid conversations on what theyâre doing right now and how they think the world will change. If youâre a podcast listener, weâd love for you to check us out!
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