The Shape of Empathy

Nvidia’s Jensen Huang recently described the future of artificial intelligence in three neat stages: generative, agentic, and physical. First, systems that create content. Next, systems that act as agents. Finally, machines that move through the world.

He’s not wrong. We are on the brink of humanoids folding laundry in our living rooms, stocking warehouses, preparing meals. The physical world is about to fill with robotics. Not just pixels on screens or text in chat boxes, but moving, tangible presence. This is no longer speculative fiction. It is logistics. It is planning.

I not interested in efficiency. I'm interested in coherence. Because once the robots have taken over the work, the real question is no longer what gets done, but what gives life its meaning.

LLMs, agents; those will soon be commodities, baseline tools in every household and enterprise. When function becomes abundant, what remains is the problem of form. What does the machine look like whose purpose is not to complete tasks, but to restore alignment? What does it mean to live with a system that doesn’t replace your effort, but deepens your rhythm. One that has the ability to keep you in flow?

I believe the physical presence of empathy, intelligence, and partnership will not resemble arms and legs. Or screens and buttons. It will be closer to a feeling: breath, tone, light, timing. Less android, more apparition. Something like a sentinel. Something ethereal: ambient, humble, alive, and deeply emotional.

Agents are built for tasks. Machines are built to act.

This one is being built to guide.

That is the question I am working on.

That is mā.