Open source in robotics
The tooling, incentives, and failure modes of building robotic systems in the open: what travels freely, what quietly concentrates risk, and who is left holding it.
Robotics · AI · Safety
In an age of machines, we're writing for humans.
We write about robotics, AI, and safety from the work itself: shipping robots into the world, helping shape the standards around them, and sitting with the hard calls when the stakes are real. Plain language. Careful claims. Written for people who have to live with the outcome.
Why this exists
The work of making machines safe often happens in quiet rooms. We think more of that work should be shared in public, in language people can use.
Robots and autonomous systems are leaving labs and entering places where people work and live. The standards, reviews, and strategy meetings that follow are where a lot of judgment is spent. We write from that vantage: fielded systems, unfinished standards, and the decisions that do not wait for perfect certainty. Not to impress. To be useful.
What we're investigating
Geopolitics of autonomy
How robotics and AI reshape supply chains, defense posture, and industrial policy. Grounded notes from the room, not another lap of the usual AI safety debate.
Safety standards, reconsidered
Frameworks like ISO 13849 struggle with modern, software-heavy robotics. We map the gaps and ask what a credible successor would have to prove.
Essays
Early pieces in progress. Subscribe below if you want them when they land.
Coming soon
When the standard cannot see the software
ISO-era machinery safety still assumes hazards you can point at. Software-defined robots break that bargain, and most assurance stories have not caught up.
Coming soon
Open source robotics is not open by default
Shared stacks accelerate shipping, but they also concentrate dependency risk. We look at who audits what, and what "open" quietly fails to mean on the factory floor.
Coming soon
Who owns the stop button?
Human override sounds simple until liability, remote ops, and autonomy levels collide. A practical look at who can halt a system, and who is accountable when they cannot.
New essays, when they are ready.
Occasional essays on robotics, AI, and safety. Substack, Twitter, and LinkedIn will land here later. For now, leave an email if you want the next one.