Intelligence Across Embodiments

Bo Ai, Henrik I. Christensen, Hao Su

Robotic embodiment encompasses the sensing, kinematics, dynamics, geometry, actuation, and control through which an agent physically interacts with the world. These properties vary across robots and change over time. We argue that general embodied intelligence requires learning that accumulates across these differences. Prevailing methods that engineer correspondences to bridge embodiment differences offer immediate practical gains, but their assumptions limit the scope of transfer in the long run. Instead, a more general approach should discover representations that support transfer to a larger range of embodiments as experience grows. We propose embodiment diversity as a promising axis of scaling, and identify broad learned priors as a complementary ingredient. We call for evaluations that better characterize embodiment gaps and transfer performance. More broadly, cross-embodiment learning connects the practical challenge of learning from heterogeneous robot experience with a broader scientific pursuit inspired by nature - physical intelligence that adapts and co-evolves with its embodiments to gain agency over its behavior and physical forms.