We already have versions of these robots. I don't think it's as wildly unsolved as you make it out to be. A few key efficiencies gained in any part of the process could tip the scales. I would bet something decent is on the market within 10 years.

If it's not C3PO it's a Boston Dynamics dog with a couple appendages, better software, and automated manufacturing.

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robotresearcher 5 hours ago | parent [-]

Boston Dynamics has the best robot mechatronics in the world, and the company is passed around between deep-pocket owners repeatedly because no one can figure out how to make products that pay for themselves. They have been trying since 1992.

iRobot, the company that shipped the most robots in history because they focused super hard on finding a cost-effective subset of cleaning tasks, failed to scale up to other even closely related tasks, went bust and was sold off.

But yeah, it's probably straightforward, right?

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jrowen 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Again I don't think it's any less straightforward than "give you for free the perfect trash picking robot control AI software". The whole point is they can do better than us on these tasks.

	▲	robotresearcher 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		“Give you for free” is a rhetorical device that focuses the discussion on the remainder that I didn’t give you. I didn’t make any claims about the relative difficultly.