Is the next AI breakthrough hiding in robotics, not chatbots?

This week on In the Blink of AI, Georgie Healy is joined by cognitive robotics researcher Colm Flanagan for a grounded look at the next phase of artificial intelligence beyond large language models. While tools like ChatGPT live comfortably in the cloud, robots do not have that luxury. A self-driving car, drone, or warehouse bot cannot wait seconds for an answer. Decisions have to happen instantly, on device. Colm explains why this constraint could force a fundamental rethink of how we build AI, pushing models to become smaller, faster, and rooted in real-world experience rather than just trained on internet text.

The conversation explores whether LLM progress is starting to plateau, what a “data ceiling” really means, and why chasing AGI might be the wrong goal altogether. From robots that form memories like humans to the privacy tradeoffs of machines that watch and learn from us, they unpack the technical limits, the hype cycles, and what actually matters for builders today. If you want a clear-eyed take on where AI is genuinely heading, and why the next breakthroughs may be physical rather than digital, this episode connects the dots.