Yes we are. It’s all very recent and physical AI is exploding now. Here is literally a 3 hour autonomous stream of a robot folding and stacking clothes.
Touche, a more or less decent pool robot cleaner is around 3k and doesn't last more than a few years without changing every part but the case itself. Ok I take it - it operates in somewhat "hostile" environment but the point still stands
Back in my day (80's-90's), our Polaris vac-sweep was pretty simple reliable. Late stage capitalism / neoliberalism made it worse.
It didn't need an LLM or deep learning to do its job because it would randomly crawl around so long that it was on. I don't understand adding complexity, fragility, or cost to a solved problem, but I guess there are enough people who engage in competitive conspicuous consumption to signal status.