Robots that learn as they fail could unlock a new era of AI

Lerrel Pinto is one of MIT Technology Review’s 2023 Innovators Under 35.

Asked to explain his work, Lerrel Pinto, 31, likes to shoot back another question: When did you last see a cool robot in your home? The answer typically depends on whether the person asking owns a robot vacuum cleaner: yesterday or never.

Pinto’s working to fix that. A computer science researcher at New York University, he wants to see robots in the home that do a lot more than vacuum: “How do we actually create robots that can be a more integral part of our lives,...