[michaelhoney]

Watching the two-handed robot has me thinking that a third hand, perhaps with a different set of capabilities (like a tentacle grip) might make many tasks easier. I realise that more limbs = more problems, but even so, having additional ways to hold and turn things would be a big help.

[xnickb]

My thoughts exactly, but to train it you'd need a lot of data with someone manually operating it. With just two hands it's enough to have a lot of footage of humans doing it. Maybe down the line the robots will be able to self-improve or someone will come up with ways to optimize this..

[_carbyau_]

SciFi novel "The Mote in God's Eye." has aliens with three hands.

One "gripping hand" kinda coming out the gut, and two dextrous hands for detail work. Led to abuse of English language with: On the one hand... On the other hand... On the gripping hand...

[IIsi50MHz]

Which is reall just a patch for the problem of "On one hand… On the other hand… …On the OTHER hand…".

It's worth noting that the one-other-gripping pattern seems meant to convey two considerations and end with the strongest of three.

The English one-other pattern doesn't necessarily require the second consideration to dominate. They could be equal, or they might merely introduce concerns that haven't been evaluated to conclusion yet.

Alas, one-other-gripping doesn't seem to generalise to more than three concerns.

[snovv_crash]

Anybody who worked on a car knows an extra hand would always be helpful.

[mghackerlady]

I feel like there'll soon be a market for AI controlled enhancements like limbs. Neural interfaces seem to be a long shot, at least for now, so some kind of AI that senses the environment and intelligently react to it seems like the next best thing

[YarickR2]

I'd settle for something to just hand me required wrenches/bits/heads/etc while I'm under the car. This actually shouldn't require much.

[tmzt]

A prehensile-tailed monkey? Watch them perform simple tasks with three useful appendages. (Really five)

[bahmboo]

aka Rocky (this is a reference to Project Hail Mary). Great descriptions in the book about how the fictional creature can use the arms together or differently and on multiple tasks at the same time.

[amelius]

Yeah, folding sheets requires 4 hands. With a large distance between each pair.

[XorNot]

Or just two to four robots working as a team.

[sharno]

We need Amdahl's law for limbs

[NamlchakKhandro]

tentacle grip.... giggidy giggigdy gooooo