Boston Zoning Commission Chair Michael Nichols, who heads a downtown advocacy group, said he plans to recuse himself from Wednesday’s vote on a contentious zoning plan that would clear the way for more skyscrapers downtown.

Nichols, president of the Downtown Boston Alliance, said that although he was cleared by the state Ethics Commission to take part in the vote, he ultimately opted not to weigh in on the zoning changes proposed in PLAN: Downtown in his official capacity as chair of the Zoning Commission.

“I was able to get a state ethics opinion that held that I do not actually have any conflicts tomorrow that run afoul of state law, but I nonetheless don’t want it to be a distraction — so I’m opting not to participate,” Nichols told the Herald Tuesday.

Nichols said he sought the ethics opinion based on a potential conflict of interest he may have in voting on the downtown zoning plan due to his advocacy group’s work to “analyze the plan for so long.”

He is the chair and president of the Downtown Boston Alliance, which represents commercial property owners in the city’s core.

Nichols said he is also planning to turn the gavel over to Commission Vice Chair Jill Hatton for the duration of the meeting that pertains to the downtown zoning plan. Ahead of the vote, a public hearing will be held.

The Downtown Boston Alliance submitted a letter in support of the plan — and its proposed creation of new skyline districts that would allow for 500-700 foot towers in parts of the historic downtown — to the Zoning Commission last Friday. It was sent by DBA Chief of Staff Kelsey Pramik.

“The plan’s passage today is critical for completing the neighborhood’s needed transformation such that it can align with a ‘new normal’ that requires a broader mix of uses, a modernized and more predictable zoning code, and a housing-first agenda to welcome a new generation of residents,” the DBA letter states.

The Alliance sent a similar letter of support to the Boston Planning and Development Agency Board last month, ahead of the board’s 4-1 vote in favor of the zoning plan.

If approved by the Zoning Commission, the Wu administration’s downtown plan would go into effect.

The plan would clear the way for new buildings to tower up to 700 feet over the historic downtown.

It has been a source of contention for other stakeholders, particularly the Downtown Boston Neighborhood Association, which has described the proposed changes as “destructive,” in that they would alter the character of the city’s core and turn it into Manhattan.

Critics have also flagged potential violations to the state’s shadow law, which was enacted in 1990 and restricts the creation of new shadows on the Boston Common and Public Garden at certain times of the day.

The Association supports additional towering in the Financial District east of Washington Street, where such heights have traditionally been allowed. It opposes new skyscrapers in the historic and increasingly residential Ladder Blocks and Park Plaza neighborhoods to the west of Washington Street and adjacent to the Boston Common.

At Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute, robots are being trained to use artificial intelligence to do everyday tasks. One curvy, tubelike robot with a claw for a hand is learning how to hang clothes. Another is being trained to help people get dressed – it can grab onto a sleeve and pull it up a person’s arm.

The robots are examples of something called physical AI: essentially, robots that use artificial intelligence to perceive their environment and make decisions with some degree of autonomy. The university sees physical AI as a technological frontier where it can plant a flag – and it’s doing this work in a building that carries echoes of Pittsburgh’s industrial past.

In a passageway between lab rooms at the institute – housed in what a top faculty member says used to be the Bureau of Mines – a pair of tracks mark the path where steel mining carts used to bring equipment to be inspected. It’s a visible reminder of Pittsburgh’s steel boom, which brought in a massive wave of manufacturing and job growth until the industry collapsed in the early 1980s.

Now, Pittsburgh is banking on being a leader in a potential new industrial revolution. With a pool of talent from Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh, the city ranks No. 7 on the Brookings Institution’s benchmarking of nearly 200 U.S. artificial intelligence hubs. City leaders promote Pittsburgh’s potential to be a global AI hub. They say the AI revolution is a natural extension of the region’s industrial history, and will bring in blue-collar jobs by way of data center construction. They also say Pittsburgh’s culture means its AI innovation is focused on technologies that can solve significant problems for people.

“We’re not a land of dating apps,” says Meredith Meyer Grelli, the managing director of Carnegie Mellon’s Swartz Center for Entrepreneurship. “We’re like, figure [stuff] out that makes the world a better place to be in.”

As with all bets, Pittsburgh’s wager on AI comes with risks. After a decades-long economic slump, the AI boom has brought venture capital to the city, with investment reaching a record high of $999 million last year. But AI is still a new industry, and it’s not yet clear whether people will flock to robots that could empty their dishwashers or perform surgeries. A number of high-profile figures like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman suggest investors have become overexcited about the technology – and if they pull back, the boom could fizzle.

A Middletown fire engine found an unusual surprise while responding to a home in town on Tuesday.

It came as a shock to the crew when they arrived and found a cat with its head stuck in a chair.

The cat, named Ozzy, was carefully set free by crew members.

The cat refused further medical evaluation, but is expected to be just fine.