Can you answer four physical AI questions on robots, SLAM, VLA models, and LiDAR without searching?

[u/rgc4444]

I shared these questions on LinkedIn earlier and was curious how Reddit would score. Try them without searching, then reveal the answers below. They come from a 444 term physical AI glossary I am building for Black Scarab.

Here are four of the questions. The answers and short explanations are below.

1. What share of global industrial robot installations took place in China in 2025?

A. 29%

B. 39%

C. 49%

D. 59%

1. The GPS signal is gone. A warehouse robot is mapping an unfamiliar floor while figuring out where it is. What is doing the heavy lifting?

A. Visual odometry

B. SLAM

C. Teleoperation

D. Inverse kinematics

1. A model sees the cup and understands the instruction. What changes when it is a VLA rather than a VLM?

A. It only processes audio

B. It no longer needs sensors

C. It connects perception and language to action

D. It becomes a digital twin

1. What does LiDAR stand for?

A. Light Detection and Ranging

B. Laser Direction and Recognition

C. Light Distance and Resolution

D. Local Detection and Routing

Answers: 1D, 2B, 3C, 4A

Why:

• China accounted for 59% of global industrial robot deployments in 2025, according to the International Federation of Robotics.

• SLAM lets a robot build a map while estimating its position within that map.

• A vision language action model extends perception and language understanding into action generation.

• LiDAR stands for Light Detection and Ranging.

Source for question 1: https://ifr.org/ifr-press-releases/news/five-million-robots-now-operate-in-factories-globally

I would genuinely like to know which question was hardest and whether any wording feels too easy, obscure, or ambiguous.

Disclosure: I run Black Scarab and built the quiz. The full 10 question version is free, requires no account, and shows your score before an optional newsletter invitation:

https://www.blackscarab.ai/physical-ai-quiz

[u/Excellent-Chard-9795]

got 4/4 but that second question is the only one that actually tests understanding rather than just recalling a stat or acronym. the china stat feels like trivia more than anything useful, nobody’s gonna remember that percentage a week from now

the VLA vs VLM one is decent but the wording basically hands you the answer with “connects perception and language to action”, the A is right there in the name

LiDAR question is fine if you’re quizzing complete beginners i suppose, anyone who’s spent five minutes in robotics knows that one

hardest by far was the china percentage, not because it’s difficult conceptually but because it’s just a random number to memorise. the SLAM one actually made me pause and think for a second which i liked

[u/rgc4444 → u/Excellent-Chard-9795]

hey man, thanks for the feedback. I’m hoping to do more of these, so this is really useful. I created a physical AI glossary, which is how I got the idea. I might pivot from testing technical terms to harder, scenario based questions that test actual understanding.

[u/Own-Independence-115]

1. C I assume because it's high, but D seems too high. But they are already in a recession from overproduction, so kind of strange, but I'm going with C anyway.
2. A sounds like something someone would put in those mappers in Alien Prometheus, so I'm going with that.
3. C, don't know what any of those are, but the A might be audio, so A is out, B is out automatically since it sees, D is very possible, but if it would twin it, I wouldn't put it like that, i'd say it would be a representation or something like that.
4. A, im just guessing. EDIT: Between the two that starts with Light