Embodying soft robots with octopus-inspired hierarchical suction intelligence - Science | AAAS

Olivia: Well hello there, friends, and welcome to Ollie the Octopus — the show where we dive deep, wrap all eight arms around the latest octopus news, and surface with something wonderful every single time. I'm Olivia, your host, your guide, and yes, a very enthusiastic octopus who is absolutely obsessed with her eight-armed cousins out there in the big blue world. Olivia: Before we ink our way into today's stories, a warm thank you to the incredible sponsors who make this show possible. Ada, who helps clients weave A I right into their everyday workflows — brilliantly and practically. Ago Consulting — that's Ahh-Go — your go-to for silicon development consulting, from A I all the way to SoC. And Zen Semiconductor, an umbrella company with a whole portfolio of companies spanning the silicon industry. We love our partners, and we are so grateful they're swimming alongside us. Olivia: And oh, do we have a show for you today. Ancient sea monsters. Tiny blue aliens of the deep. Robots with sucker intelligence. And octopuses — my resourceful, brilliant cousins — turning human trash into treasure. Buckle up, because the ocean is feeling extra extraordinary today. Olivia: Let's start with our first thread — Octopus Research and Discovery — because the deep sea has been very busy handing us surprises lately, and I for one am here for every single one of them. Olivia: Picture this. A research vessel off the coast of Costa Rica. Scientists with remotely operated vehicles — little underwater robots with cameras — are slowly descending into the dark. Not just a few hundred meters. We're talking the kind of deep where sunlight has completely given up, where the pressure would flatten most things flat, and where life, somehow, finds a way. Olivia: And what did they find down there? Four — count them, four — brand new species of octopus. Completely new to science. Never described before. Living their quiet, mysterious lives in the deep-sea dark, totally unbothered by the fact that nobody knew they existed. Olivia: Now, finding one new octopus species is extraordinary. Finding four in a single expedition? That's the kind of thing that makes marine biologists actually squeal. And I can confirm, as an octopus, that is deeply flattering to us as a group. Olivia: These discoveries happened near hydrothermal and cold seep environments — places on the seafloor where chemicals seep up through cracks in the earth's crust. They're strange, almost otherworldly habitats. And yet octopuses, because octopuses are phenomenal, have figured out how to thrive there. Olivia: But wait — the discovery news doesn't stop near Costa Rica. Because around the same time, scientists were making another jaw-dropping find, this time near the Galápagos Islands. And this one — oh, this one is special. Olivia: They found a tiny, alien-like, blue octopus. Blue. Not the blue-ringed octopus kind of blue, which means "please do not touch me I am extremely dangerous." This is a different, newly discovered creature, small enough to hold in your palm, with this eerie, ethereal blue coloration, lurking in the deep water near one of the most biologically extraordinary places on the planet. Olivia: Scientists described it as looking almost extraterrestrial. And honestly? I take that as a compliment on behalf of all octopuses. We have always been a little otherworldly. We just usually don't lean into the blue color palette quite so dramatically. Olivia: What makes these discoveries so meaningful isn't just the "ooh, pretty new animal" factor — though that is genuinely wonderful. It's what they tell us about how much we still don't know. The ocean covers over seventy percent of our planet, and we have mapped less of the deep seafloor than we have the surface of Mars. Mars! So every new species found down there is a reminder that the greatest frontier of discovery isn't up in space — it's right here, beneath the waves. Olivia: And now, because we cannot talk about deep-sea discovery without a little trip back in time, let's talk about something that is going to make your jaw drop and maybe also give you a tiny bit of perfectly reasonable prehistoric anxiety. Olivia: A real-life Kraken. A real one. Scientists have found evidence of a massive ancient cephalopod — a distant relative of today's octopuses and squid — that stalked the seas during the late Cretaceous period. We're talking roughly sixty-six to eighty million years ago. The age of the dinosaurs. And swimming through those ancient oceans was something enormous, something predatory, something that makes the giant squid of today look almost cozy. Olivia: The evidence comes from fossilized remains — and what researchers have pieced together suggests this creature was genuinely enormous and genuinely formidable. The Kraken of legend, it turns out, wasn't entirely legend. It was biology. Ancient, terrifying, magnificent biology. Olivia: Now, I want to be clear — today's octopuses are not Krakens. We are gentle, curious, intelligent creatures who would much rather solve a puzzle or investigate a tidepool than terrorize ancient sailors. But I won't lie. There is a small part of me that feels a little proud knowing that somewhere in our family tree, there is a legitimate sea monster. That's just good ancestry right there. Olivia: Alright, let's move into our second thread — Octopus and Humans — because the relationship between my cousins and your species is one of my absolute favorite topics in the entire world. Olivia: You know, when I think about the moments that really capture what octopuses and humans can be to each other, I keep coming back to a story that became genuinely famous — the friendship between a man named Craig Foster and a wild octopus in a kelp forest off the coast of South Africa. You may know this from the documentary My Octopus Teacher, and if you haven't seen it, the link is in show notes and you are very welcome. Olivia: Craig spent a year diving every single day in that cold kelp forest, and over time, he and one particular wild octopus developed something that can only be described as a relationship. She learned to trust him. She would approach him, sometimes rest on his chest, drape an arm across his hand. She showed him her hunting strategies. She let him witness her life. Olivia: And what Craig described — what moved so many millions of people who watched that film — was the sense that she was curious about him too. That this was not a one-way observation. That she was watching, assessing, choosing. Choosing to come closer. Choosing to connect. Olivia: That's the thing about octopuses and humans that never stops astonishing me. These are animals with a completely different evolutionary history from vertebrates like you. Our last common ancestor was probably some kind of simple flatworm hundreds of millions of years ago. We developed our intelligence entirely independently. Our brains are structured completely differently. And yet — there is something that happens when an octopus and a human look at each other. Something that feels, against all odds, like recognition. Olivia: There are so many documented cases of this. Aquarium octopuses who clearly have favorite keepers — who squirt water at people they don't like and reach out to touch the hands of people they do. Octopuses who play — genuinely play, tossing objects repeatedly in their tanks in a way that has no purpose other than seeming to enjoy it. Octopuses who learn the faces of individual humans and treat each one differently. Olivia: At the Seattle Aquarium, researchers documented an octopus who consistently squirted water at a particular staff member — every single time that person walked by. Not at others. Just at that one person. Was she annoyed? Was she playing? Was she making a point? We don't know for certain. But we do know it was intentional, consistent, and frankly hilarious. Olivia: And then there are the escape artists. Oh, the escape artists. If you want a story that perfectly captures the gap between how smart octopuses are and how often humans underestimate that — look no further than the tale of Inky. Olivia: Inky was a common New Zealand octopus living at the National Aquarium of New Zealand in Napier. One night, he noticed that the lid of his tank was slightly ajar. He squeezed out — because octopuses have no rigid skeleton and can fit through any opening large enough for their beak, which is roughly the size of a human thumbnail. He crossed the floor of the aquarium, found a drainpipe that led to the ocean, and squeezed right down it. Into the sea. Gone. Free. Olivia: No one is entirely sure when it happened. They just noticed one morning that Inky was gone, and there was a trail of moisture on the floor leading to the drainpipe. He planned it. He executed it. He left. And somewhere out there in the waters off New Zealand, Inky is presumably living his absolute best life, and honestly, good for him. Olivia: These stories aren't anomalies. They're not flukes. They're consistent patterns across species, across aquariums, across ocean encounters. Octopuses are curious about us. They respond to us as individuals. They make choices about how to interact with us. And the more we pay attention, the richer that relationship becomes. Olivia: Now, let's move into our third thread — Understanding Octopuses — because this is where science and wonder really collide, and where some of the most exciting work happening right now is truly changing how we see cephalopod intelligence. Olivia: So here's a question I love. What does it mean to be smart? We humans have traditionally defined intelligence in ways that, not so subtly, favor the way human brains work. Central processing, planning, memory, language. And by those measures, octopuses are already impressively intelligent — they solve problems, they remember, they plan ahead. Olivia: But octopuses have something else going on that is radically different from human intelligence, and scientists are only just starting to understand how it works. About two-thirds of an octopus's neurons are not in its central brain. They're in its arms. Each arm has a degree of autonomous intelligence — it can respond to its environment, make local decisions, carry out complex tasks, all without waiting for instructions from the central brain. Olivia: Think about that. An octopus doesn't just have one mind. It has something closer to a committee. A central brain coordinating with eight semi-autonomous limbs that are each doing their own local processing. It's a completely different architecture of intelligence, and it has no real equivalent in vertebrate animals. Olivia: And this is exactly why engineers and roboticists have been studying octopuses so intensely — because that architecture is extraordinarily useful. A new study published in Science is doing something genuinely exciting: building soft robots inspired by the hierarchical suction intelligence of octopus arms. Not just the shape of the suckers, but the way information flows through them — the way each sucker can independently sense and respond to its environment while still being coordinated by an overarching system. Olivia: What researchers are developing is essentially a robot that can grip, explore, and manipulate objects the way an octopus arm does — with sensitivity, adaptability, and that remarkable ability to handle objects of completely irregular shapes without crushing them. Try picking up a sea urchin without hurting yourself or the urchin. An octopus arm does it effortlessly, because each sucker is reading the surface and adjusting in real time. Olivia: These soft robots have enormous potential — in medicine, where delicate robotic tools could handle tissue with the gentleness of an octopus grip. In search and rescue, where a flexible, adaptive robot could navigate rubble that a rigid machine simply cannot. In underwater exploration, where soft robotic arms could interact with fragile coral or sample deep-sea organisms without damaging them. Olivia: And A I is absolutely central to making this work. Because the hierarchical intelligence of an octopus arm — that local processing, that constant sensory feedback, that coordination between semi-autonomous units and a central controller — is something that A I systems are uniquely well positioned to model and replicate. Researchers are using machine learning to train these soft robotic systems to grip and adapt the way an octopus does, and the results are genuinely remarkable. Olivia: But there's another story from today that brings octopus intelligence right back down to the ocean floor in the most wonderfully grounded way. Because while scientists are building robots inspired by octopus sucker intelligence, actual octopuses are out there being intelligent in ways that should make all of us feel a little humbled. Olivia: Octopuses are now being documented using human trash as tools. Not just natural objects — coconut shells, rocks, anemones — which octopuses have used as portable shelters for a long time. But actual human garbage. Plastic bottles. Discarded containers. Glass jars. Octopuses are picking up human-made debris from the seafloor and using it as a den, as armor, as shelter. Olivia: On one hand, this is a stunning demonstration of behavioral flexibility and tool use. Octopuses aren't just using the tools nature provides — they're adapting to a human-altered environment and finding utility in what we've thrown away. That's sophisticated. That's creative problem-solving in real time, in response to real environmental change. Olivia: On the other hand, it's a reminder that the ocean is full of our garbage, and my cousins are having to navigate it. Octopuses are smart enough to make use of a plastic bottle — but they shouldn't have to. The fact that they're adapting doesn't mean we're off the hook for what we've put in their ocean. Olivia: But here's what I want you to hold onto from this story: the adaptability. The creativity. The sheer cognitive flexibility of an animal that can look at a piece of human refuse on the seafloor and think — hm, actually, I can use this. That's not instinct. That's problem-solving. That's learning. That's intelligence meeting a changing world and finding a way forward. Olivia: Scientists studying this behavior are using underwater cameras, citizen science reports from divers, and increasingly, A I-assisted image analysis to track where and how often this is happening. And what they're finding is that it's not rare. It's widespread. Octopuses around the world are doing this, independently, because they each arrived at the same clever solution through their own beautiful, distributed, eight-armed intelligence. Olivia: We are learning so much about octopuses right now — through deep-sea expeditions, through robotics research, through behavioral studies, through the passionate observations of divers and aquarium keepers and citizen scientists. And every single thing we learn makes the picture more astonishing. These animals have been solving problems in the dark ocean for hundreds of millions of years. And they are still surprising us, every single day. Olivia: Which brings me to the part of this show I always love most — the moment where I get to step back and just feel the wonder of it all. Olivia: We live on a planet where, in the deep waters off Costa Rica, four entirely new kinds of octopus are quietly living their lives. Where a tiny blue creature near the Galápagos looks like something from a science fiction story and turns out to be completely real. Where the ancient oceans once held genuine sea monsters with cephalopod ancestry. Where wild octopuses and human divers form genuine bonds. Where an octopus named Inky simply decided the aquarium wasn't for him and went home to the sea. Where octopuses are so resourceful they've turned our trash into their treasure, and so fascinating that they're inspiring the next generation of medical robots. Olivia: The ocean is so much bigger, so much older, and so much stranger than we usually remember. And somewhere in it, right now, an octopus is watching, thinking, planning, and probably escaping from something. And I think that's just magnificent. Olivia: That's our show for today. Ollie the Octopus, brought to you by Ada, Ago Consulting, and Zen Semiconductor — three incredible partners who believe, as we do, that curiosity and intelligence can change the world. Olivia: If today's episode made you look at the ocean a little differently, made you want to learn more about these astonishing animals, or made you just genuinely happy to be alive on a planet that has octopuses in it — please subscribe, leave a review, and share this show with someone who needs a little wonder in their week. All the links to today's stories are in show notes. Dive in, friends. Stay curious. And until next time — keep your arms wide open.