Robot hand solves Rubik’s cube, but not the grand challenge

AKIPRESS.COM - OpenAI's system used a computer simulation to teach the robot hand to solve the cube, running through routines that would take a single human some 10,000 years to complete, BBC reported.
Once taught, the robot was able to solve a cube that had been slightly modified to help the machine tell which way up it was being held.
Completion time varied, the research team said, but it generally took around four minutes to complete the task.
Using machine-learning and robotics to solve a Rubik's cube has been achieved before. Notably, in March 2018, a machine developed by engineers at MIT managed to solve a cube in just 0.38 seconds.
What's significant with OpenAI's effort is the use of a multi-purpose robot, in this case a human-hand-like design, rather than a machine specifically designed to handle a Rubik's cube and nothing else.
"The ability to solve the Rubik's cube in the real world, on a robot hand, is actually extremely difficult," said Matthias Plappert, team leader for robotics at OpenAI.
"You need to very precisely control your fingers, you need to do it for a very long time without kind of messing up in between. and a lot of different things can happen in the process."