The operator under observation.
Physical-AI systems sense the workforce in ways a human supervisor cannot. From an ordinary camera and microphone they read operator state (pulse, respiration, fatigue, attention, stress) below the threshold of human sight. The same perception that can protect an operator can expose one. This track studies where the line belongs: what should be sensed, by whom, and with what consent and governance. It is a new competency of the Human Layer.
Modalities the research spans:VideoAudioThermalSpatial RF / mmWave
An ordinary camera and microphone can read an operator's pulse, fatigue and attention. The same perception that protects someone can expose them, and the physics does not distinguish the two because it is the same signal. So the work is governance and consent architecture, which move on political rather than technical timescales, and which better sensors do not help. Getting the line right early is what makes the protective use possible at all.
One of eight, and only one of them is physics. How we read a frontier →