Title: The Path to Humanoid Intelligence

Abstract:
Humanoid robots represent the ideal physical embodiment to assist us in the diversity of our daily tasks and human-centric environments. Driven by substantial hardware advancements, progress in artificial intelligence (AI), and a growing demand for adaptable automation, this vision appears increasingly feasible.
Yet, to date, humanoid intelligence remains far from achieving its envisioned general-purpose capabilities. What sets it apart from other challenges in machine learning — and even within robotics?
My research seeks to address this question and ultimately aims to bridge the gap between humanoid AI and human intelligence. In this talk, I outline two key strategies: (1) developing algorithms, systems, and architectures that leverage embodiment-aware priors and inductive biases to manage the high-dimensional complexity of humanoid robot learning, and (2) harnessing multi-sensory feedback from the environment — such as vision, touch, and audio — to enable a unified, versatile embodiment capable of effectively reasoning across a wide range of tasks.

Bio:
Carmelo (Carlo) Sferrazza is a postdoctoral researcher at UC Berkeley, working with Prof. Pieter Abbeel. His research focuses on advancing humanoid robots’ intelligence by incorporating priors, inductive biases, and multi-sensory feedback. Carlo obtained his Ph.D. from ETH Zurich under the supervision of Prof. Raffaello D’Andrea. During his doctoral research, he worked on the design of vision-based, data-driven tactile sensors, and the applications of such sensors to robot control and dexterous manipulation. Carlo’s Ph.D. thesis was awarded the ETH Medal, and in 2022, he was selected as a Robotics Science and Systems Pioneer. He is also the recipient of an SNSF Postdoctoral Fellowship, a Rising Star Award and a Best Paper Award at the IEEE International Conference on Soft Robotics, and the 2017 ETEL Award. He frequently shares his research with the general public, including presentations at events such as the WORLD.MINDS Annual Symposium and TEDxZurich.