It's frustrating. Even basic industrial robots have not been hugely successful outside of a few areas, such as automobile assembly. Amazon seems to have given up on the Amazon Picking Challenge; the last competition was in 2017. Here's the winner.[1] That's just bin-picking. Manipulation in unstructured environments is still very poor. DARPA's manipulation and humanoid robot programs got as far as public competitions and were then discontinued. Here's how far that got.[2]
On top of that, good robot arms are expensive. Startups announce low-cost ones, but many don't hold up in continuous use. Universal Robot from Denmark seems to be doing well, but their arms start around $35,000. Rethink Robotics went bust. Even with more "AI", the smartness is mostly limited to targeting objects that aren't perfectly aligned.
On top of that, good robot arms are expensive. Startups announce low-cost ones, but many don't hold up in continuous use. Universal Robot from Denmark seems to be doing well, but their arms start around $35,000. Rethink Robotics went bust. Even with more "AI", the smartness is mostly limited to targeting objects that aren't perfectly aligned.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AljePt7Mh6U
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeABMoYJGEU