Raj Reddy
Moza Bint Nasser University Professor
Carnegie Mellon University
April 10, 2026
The last decade has seen extraordinary advances in AI. The potential arrival of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) has profound implications for future of our society. We anticipate a world where AI assistants and humanoid-robots will perform most of the tasks requiring human expertise and skill at 10% of current costs. In this paradigm, essential services—including food, housing, energy, education, healthcare, and transportation—will be provided via Universal Basic Services, signaling a historic shift from a society of scarcity to one of abundance.
This transformation raises a critical concern: widespread displacement of traditional labor. What is the human role when AI can do everything? This talk presents an alternative scenario: a “Human-in-the-Loop” evolution. In this model, humans transition into high-level supervisory roles, collaborating with AGI to train robots in novel skills and adapt them to unforeseen tasks.
We explore this as the “Maharaja Model” where technology serves humanity so comprehensively that work will be optional for humans. Finally, we will discuss how institutions like the Robotics Institute must lead this transition, developing the hybrid technologies and ethical frameworks necessary to bridge the gap between our current economy and a robot-assisted future.
Raj Reddy is a University Professor of Computer Science and Robotics and Moza Bint Nasser Chair at Carnegie Mellon University. He was an Assistant Professor at Stanford from 1966-69 and Faculty Member at Carnegie Mellon since 1969. He served as the founding Director of the Robotics Institute from 1979 to 1991 and the Dean of School of Computer Science from 1991 to 1999.
He has been active in AI research for over five decades in the areas of AI, Speech Understanding, Image Understanding, Robotics, Multi-sensor Fusion, and Intelligent Agents. Dr. Reddy’s current research interests include: Technology in Service of Society, Voice Computing for the 3B semi-literate populations at the bottom of the pyramid, Digital Democracy, and Learning Science and Technologies.
He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He served as co-chair of President Clinton’s Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC) from 1999 to 2001. Dr. Reddy is the recipient of the Legion of Honor in 1984, the ACM Turing Award in 1994, the Padma Bhushan in 2001, the Honda Prize in 2005 and Vannevar Bush Award in 2006.
