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← People and their mental models

Rodney Brooks's mental models

3 claims Rodney Brooks made fit 3 mental models. Most often: Bottlenecks, Make it real, Second-order thinking. Everything they said here.

Models they name

Their own words name the idea.

Make it real

Build a prototype; it settles arguments a description cannot.

Used by 25 others

The air-taxi industry's forecasts are not backed by flying hardware: there are no videos of prototypes doing what the hype says will be routine within three years.

  1. Rodney Brooks Robotics researcher, emeritus professor at MIT and former… I see lots of hype about eVTOLs being on the verge of being big, but I can’t find any videos of prototypes doing what the hype says will be common place by 2025. Where Are The Crewed eVTOL Videos?rodneybrooks.com · 5 Nov 2022All korrents from this piece
    Their wordsI see lots of hype about eVTOLs being on the verge of being big, but I can’t find any videos of prototypes doing what the hype says will be common place by 2025.

    ↗Where Are The Crewed eVTOL Videos?rodneybrooks.com

    5 Nov 2022

Models we see in what they say

Our reading: their claim applies the idea without naming it. The claim is theirs; filing it here is ours.

Bottlenecks

A system moves only as fast as its narrowest point; speed up anything else and nothing changes.

Used by 88 others

A radically new product needs many separate technologies to arrive together, and waiting for that convergence can take decades.

  1. Rodney Brooks Robotics researcher, emeritus professor at MIT and former… All radically new products, and air taxi eVTOLs certainly count as radically new, require the convergence of many different capabilities and technologies. Often one or more technology will be lagging and it may take decades for them all to come together in the right place at the right time. Where Are The Crewed eVTOL Videos?rodneybrooks.com · 5 Nov 2022All korrents from this piece
    Their wordsAll radically new products, and air taxi eVTOLs certainly count as radically new, require the convergence of many different capabilities and technologies. Often one or more technology will be lagging and it may take decades for them all to come together in the right place at the right time.

    ↗Where Are The Crewed eVTOL Videos?rodneybrooks.com

    5 Nov 2022

Second-order thinking

Ask "and then what?": follow a decision past its first effect to the ones that come after.

Used by 86 others

A robotaxi that still needs remote human help loses the cost advantage that motivated it, which pushes out when it can scale.

  1. Rodney Brooks Robotics researcher, emeritus professor at MIT and former… Systems which do require remote operations assistance to get full reliability cut into that economic advantage and have a higher burden on their ROI calculations to make a business case for their adoption and therefore their time horizon to scaling across geographies. Predictions Scorecard, 2026 January 01rodneybrooks.com · 1 Jan 2026All korrents from this piece
    Their wordsSystems which do require remote operations assistance to get full reliability cut into that economic advantage and have a higher burden on their ROI calculations to make a business case for their adoption and therefore their time horizon to scaling across geographies.

    ↗Predictions Scorecard, 2026 January 01rodneybrooks.com

    1 Jan 2026