Spatial Computing, Robotics & the Great Reversal

CEO of Auki Labs, building the Posemesh — an open protocol for collaborative spatial computing. Auki develops multi-robot coordination, AR-based retail co-pilots, and the "internet of spaces, sensors, and actuators." Based in Hong Kong since 2019.

Chapters

1. 0:00Intro — how Aug met Nils through Warhammer
2. 1:56Meet Nils Pihl — CEO of Auki Labs
3. 3:08What Auki Labs builds — multi-robot coordination
4. 5:27The perception and mapping problem — robots vs pits
5. 6:51Origin story — Warhammer AR overlays during COVID
6. 11:12The shared coordinate system problem
7. 14:11Why GPS fails for robotics and AR
8. 16:05The patent — phone-to-phone calibration in one second
9. 17:52$20M raise and betting on the long game
10. 18:48Retail robots and AR co-pilots — deploying this year
11. 19:28The great reversal — computers coming out to us
12. 20:21Internet of spaces, sensors, and actuators
13. 21:45Why Hong Kong is the perfect spatial computing testbed
14. 24:03HK talent drain — world-class researchers, nowhere to work
15. 25:45Hong Kong vs Shenzhen vs Silicon Valley
16. 29:06Hong Kong as a sci-fi city — Ghost in the Shell, Blade Runner
17. 33:32Hong Kong's missing social fabric for tech
18. 42:29Midpoint break — subscribe, comment, share
19. 42:54Contributing to Posemesh — GitHub, AI wiki, grants
20. 49:05Terence McKenna — the spirit animal of Auki Labs
21. 50:24Psychedelics as a tool for abstract thinking
22. 54:29Language shapes perception — the fallen tree as couch
23. 57:12Technology of togetherness — oral tradition to chat rooms
24. 1:04:54AI agents bridging virtual and physical reality
25. 1:06:16Robots with Auki spatial intelligence — coming this year
26. 1:06:33Outro

About This Episode

Nils dives into multi-robot coordination and collaborative perception — how phones, glasses, and robots build a shared understanding of physical space. From Warhammer AR overlays during COVID to a patented phone-to-phone calibration technique and retail robots deploying this year. Plus why Hong Kong is the perfect testbed for spatial computing, and the "great reversal" of computers coming out to us.