[tintor]

'main hard part of making a capable robot is the AI part'

Robots are far behind.

Mechanical hands with human equivalent performance is as hard as the AI part.

Strong, fast, durable, tough, touch and temp sensitive, dexterous, light, water-proof, energy efficient, non-overheating.

Muscles and tendons in human hands and forearms self-heal and grow stronger with more use.

Mechanical tendons stretch and break. Small motors have plenty of issues of their own.

[AndrewKemendo]

And your claim is that those will never be solved?

As a professional robotics engineer I can tell you for a fact they are coming soon.

[WastedCucumber]

There's nothing in that post claiming those problems will never be solved. I understand the claim as "the hardware conponent of robotics needs more work and this will take some time, compared to AI capabilities/software" Or soemthing like that.

Maybe you could clarify what your experience on the matter is, how the state of th art looks to you, and most of all what timelines you imagine?

[AndrewKemendo]

Just look up “fine dexterous manipulation with pressure feedback” to see the SOTA for dexterous manipulation

There’s at least a half dozen products, two recently from Unitree and Allegro announced.

Rodney Brooks wrote about the challenges - but frankly it was a submarine piece for his work

https://rodneybrooks.com/why-todays-humanoids-wont-learn-dex...

[DaveZale]

you are talking high cost emvironments, at least for the moment?

Come on... show me a robot that can run a farm that grows organic produce at an affordable price. It is the lowest wage job out there. Automating it would make prices far out of range for the 99% - but the billionaires could care less?

[Jensson]

You need an AI to do that, affordable robots are already here but the intelligence is not.

[robbrown451]

For most things they don't need to be "human equivalent." I'd be willing to be the current crop of robots we're seeing could do most tasks like vacuuming, cooking, picking up clutter, folding laundry and putting it aways, making beds, touch up painting, gardening etc. It seems to be getting better very fast. And if mechanical tendons break, you replace them. Big deal. You don't even need a person to do the repair.