Interdisciplinary Workshop on Mechanical Intelligence: Summary Report

arXiv cs.RO / 4/21/2026

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Key Points

The report summarizes outcomes from a 2024 Interdisciplinary Workshop on Mechanical Intelligence (MI), a concept where mechanical structures in materials/biological/robotic systems encode intelligence via responsiveness, adaptivity, memory, and learning.
MI is positioned as distinct from computational intelligence, where intelligence primarily arises through electrical signaling and software rather than being embedded in the mechanics.
The two-day workshop was held at NSF headquarters on May 30–31, featuring 38 invited academic researchers and 8 NSF program officers.
Participants used active small- and large-group discussions, captured notes in shared slide decks, and consolidated results into a final presentation on the last day.
The document provides an overall summary of the workshop’s discussions and outcomes, organized around MI topical questions.

Abstract

This report provides a summary of the outcomes of the Interdisciplinary Workshop on Mechanical Intelligence held in 2024. Mechanical Intelligence (MI) represents the phenomenon that novel structural features of material/biological/robotic systems can encode intelligence through responsiveness, adaptivity, memory, and learning in the mechanical structure itself. This is in contrast to computational intelligence, wherein the intelligence functions occur through electrical signaling and computer code. The two-day workshop was held at NSF headquarters on May 30-31 and included 38 invited academic researcher participants, and 8 program officers from the NSF. The workshop was structured around active small and large group discussions in groups of 4-5 and 9-10 with the goal of addressing topical questions on MI. Working groups entered notes into shared presentation slides for each discussion session and presented their outcomes in a final presentation on the last day. Here we summarize the overall outcomes of the workshop.