Xspark AI 丁文伯：触觉替代不了视觉，但机器人需要一套自己的“脊髓” ｜物理AI 50人

TL;DR - Xspark AI chief scientist Ding Wenbo argues that tactile sensing should complement—not replace—vision with a lightweight, low-latency “spinal cord” layer for robotic control. This architecture could improve rapid correction and safety during real-world physical interaction.

• Xspark AI proposes a three-tier stack: a VLM “slow brain” for planning, a vision-tactile-language-action “fast brain” for dexterous tasks, and a tactile-action “spinal cord” for immediate local reactions.
• Tactile feedback is most valuable after contact, detecting events such as slipping, excessive grip force, collisions, and loss of balance that vision may miss or process too slowly.
• Simply adding touch as another large-model modality risks redundancy or drowning out sparse but critical tactile signals; tactile intelligence may need smaller, edge-deployed models optimized for latency.
• Major barriers include inconsistent sensor hardware, scarce tactile data, and the lack of shared representations that transfer across sensors, modalities, and robot bodies.