Scaling Robots Beyond the Safety Cage with Andrew Singletary and Amir Sharif

As robots move out of cages and into shared human environments, safety is no longer just about stopping motion. It is about enabling systems to keep moving productively without increasing risk. 3Laws Robotics is tackling one of the hardest problems in autonomy: how to guarantee safety while machines remain in motion.

Andrew Singletary, co-founder and CEO, and Amir Sharif, COO of 3Laws Robotics, join Greg to unpack how a decade of academic research in safety critical control evolved into a commercial platform for dynamic safety across robotics, vehicles, and autonomous systems. From warehouse robots and mobile manipulators to aircraft and automobiles, their work aims to make autonomy scalable, certifiable, and trusted in the real world.

Andrew traces his path from high school robotics competitions to nuclear engineering at Georgia Tech, a PhD at Caltech, and ultimately founding 3Laws to productize safety technology that companies repeatedly asked him to integrate. Amir brings the operator’s lens shaped by multiple startups and exits, focusing on product discipline, execution, and building an organization that values getting it right over being right.

Together, they explore what it actually takes to move beyond academic proofs into functional safety that survives broken sensors, real world uncertainty, and regulatory scrutiny.

Highlights:

• The origin of 3Laws Robotics and the influence of Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws on the company’s philosophy
• Why traditional industrial safety equates safety with stopping and why that breaks down for mobile robots, vehicles, and aircraft
• The concept of dynamic safety and how robots can remain in motion while maintaining established safety guarantees
• How safety events, gridlock, and human resets quietly destroy productivity across robot fleets
• The gap between academic definitions of safety and industry expectations for functional safety
• Why safety must be designed in early rather than bolted on at the end of development
• How 3Laws works with both established robot form factors and emerging systems like mobile manipulators and humanoids
• The role of exposure and scale in redefining safety risk as robot fleets grow
• Lessons from hiring early team members and why skepticism is often a signal of deep understanding
• How Andrew and Amir divide responsibilities between vision, product, and operations without rigid boundaries
• Why culture, values, and hiring standards act as long term accelerants rather than speed bumps
• The challenge of focus when a single safety platform can apply to logistics, automotive, aerospace, and beyond
• What founders often get wrong about changing industries versus working within existing frameworks
• Why certification and third party validation are critical to trust in autonomous systems

For founders, operators, and engineers building robots that must operate alongside people, this conversation offers a grounded look at how safety, productivity, and autonomy intersect and why the future of robotics depends on systems that can move intelligently, not just stop.

Learn more about 3Laws Robotics: https://3laws.io

Connect with Andrew Singletary on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewsingletary/

Connect with Amir Sharif on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/asharif/

Connect with Greg Toroosian on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregtoroosian