AI’s Inevitable Robotics Integration and Use by Knuckleheads

A rudimentary amount of onboard sensing and autonomy processing on these bots would deal with hazards and anomalies, with the most likely outcome being “stop and let the humans look at it first — 20 minutes from now.” It makes sense that extra-terrestrial exploration by robots, like the Mars Rovers and the Mars Helicopter, could use a healthy dose of generative AI beyond mere obstacle avoidance as in Spot, the Rovers, and the Helicopter. A very recent test successfully used Anthropic’s Claude AI:

“NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover has completed the first drives on another world that were planned by artificial intelligence. Executed on Dec. 8 and 10, [2025] and led by the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, the demonstration used generative AI to create waypoints for Perseverance, a complex decision-making task typically performed manually by the mission’s human rover planners.” — CalTech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Back in Palo Alto, Mark Zuckerberg had also been looking at deploying robot dogs to guard his data centers, much like SpaceX was using it for sentinel functions at its Starbase Texas facility. Has Zuckerberg ever come up with an original idea apart from his creepy rating site of women back in his Harvard days?

“Robot dogs are standing guard for tech companies, patrolling the massive data centers across the country that power AI operations, according to Business Insider. These four-legged robots, known as quadrupeds, are in high demand from AI firms, according to robotics company Boston Dynamics, which manufactures a quadruped called Spot. These systems are able to navigate complex landscapes on their own, alert authorities about security threats, and can provide around-the-clock video surveillance.

“We’ve seen a huge, huge uptick in interest from data centers in the last year,” Merry Frayne, senior director of product management at Boston Dynamics, told Business Insider, “which is probably not surprising given the investment in that space.” — Fortune Magazine

“[Meta] has quietly built a fleet of mobile robots to patrol its data centers, and now has a team dedicated to automating its vast network of facilities around the globe, Business Insider has learned.” — Business Insider

Zuckerberg seems like a rabid Rottweiler when it comes to latching onto an emerging tech trend with massive resourcing and spends, and AI seems to be no exception. He has had past forays into virtual reality, with Zuck blowing $2B on a teenager’s Kickstarter VR headset. And the barefooter Hawaiian-beshirted kid, another college dropout, then used the cash to found Anduril Industries, a designer and manufacturer of autonomous killbots.

Anduril has done well with government contracts, no doubt in part for the kid’s (Palmer Luckey’s) donations and his hosting of Weekend at Bernie’s fundraisers for Donald Trump back in 2020 and in 2024. Tiny-pickles [pun innuendo fully intended] accompanied by Cheezits and cold-cuts on a tray is a brilliant investment strategy toward getting awarded $billions in future government contracts.

“Anduril now has support from venture capitalists including Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund [not to be confused by his Foundation] and [President Trump’s son-in-law’s brother’s] Josh Kushner’s Thrive Capital — more than $6 billion so far, with another $4 billion likely on the way. Its annual R&D spending is on the order of Lockheed Martin’s $2 billion last year,” says Paul Kwan, managing director at investment firm General Catalyst and an observer on Anduril’s board. “That’s crazy,” Kwan says. — Wired Magazine

When not allegedly management-dysfunctional, Anduril Industries is supposed to offer, among many other products, the Road Runner autonomous anti-drone system and the Fury group 5 (the largest) autonomous air vehicle (Fig. 3) intended for a variety of combat support roles and as a CCA (Collaborative Combat Aircraft, or uncrewed wingman).