Physical AI · Scope
What this dated map includes, defers and would need to revise.
The map is a dated floor for understanding, not a permanent fence. Its stopping rule is economic and causal rather than a catalogue of applications.
Include an economically distinct, explanatory input, product, process or service when it enables the physical capability being examined. Captive data work, engineering and production can qualify before a merchant market exists. Begin at the family-relevant supply interface and follow the chain to its concrete products or useful work.
Conventional automation is a substrate and comparator, not automatically Physical AI. Shared reducers, controls and integrators enter only where learned or adaptive behavior is part of the capacity being examined.
Process-plant learned control is deferred from the first machine-family coverage. Its instruments, control systems and process equipment warrant a separate chain if we take it up. It does not need to share a merchant product with a current family to belong to the broader theme.
Medical and surgical robots are deferred rather than excluded. Distinct clinical hardware, validation and deployment can justify a separate family; a new industry label alone does not. Domestic and other specialized applications follow the same test: repeat an existing route where it still explains the chain, or add a map when the inputs and processes materially differ. Market size alone is not the admission rule.
Steel, commodity cells, general semiconductors, cloud, telecom and generic vehicle manufacture are not inherited whole. They enter only at the differentiated product or activity changed by embodied autonomy.
Defence evidence can prove that a kit, supplier or manufacturing handoff exists. It cannot carry a claim about civil demand or economics, and weaponized systems remain outside the public scope.
Revise the shape when evidence shows that a depicted relationship is wrong, an important enabling role is missing, or a supposedly shared route hides materially different products and processes. Six families currently use seven route maps because mobile transport and public-facing service benefit from separate explanations. Neither the family count nor the commercial labels are permanent constraints on new evidence.