Beyond Roombas and Rosie
Part 2: Learning to Learn — Dexterity, Data, and the Objective Question Think about a baby tying shoelaces. At first it’s fumbled, uneven, and sometimes impossible. But after enough tries, the skill “clicks.” What’s remarkable is not just the act of tying shoes — it’s the ability to generalize that learning. The same hand–eye coordination shows up in folding clothes, braiding rope, or knotting a stitch to close a cut. Humans aren’t just task-learners. We’re adaptive learners. We don’t memorize a thousand individual steps; we learn how to learn. Robots are now on the cusp of something similar — though their path looks a lot different. Dexterity as the Gatekeeper For decades, robots have been impressive at heavy lifting — welding cars, stacking pallets, moving…
