Look at your hands. It is one of the most complex and versatile tools in the entire known universe. They can gently touch a child's cheek, tighten the nut with force, masterfully play the violin and, importantly, masterfully cook dumplings. And now the good (or the bad?) News: your hands have a serious competitor.

If you think that robots are only suitable for monotonous assembly on the assembly line, you are hopelessly behind the times. We are watching how robots learn to interact with the chaotic, unpredictable world of humans. And they're starting to get frighteningly good at it.

Chef's hat instead of a helmet

Robots in the kitchen can be considered one of the most impressive achievements of recent times. We are not talking about toasters or coffee machines, but about systems capable of real cooking. Imagine a mechanical hand that rolls out pizza dough, scatters it in the air, as a real pizzaiolo does, and then carefully transfers the finished base to a baking sheet. All this is without a single through hole in the dough.

"We are teaching robots not just to grab objects, but to understand their material essence," muses one of the engineers. — Dough is not a solid object, but a malleable, viscoelastic material. Its behavior obeys complex physical laws, and the fact that the robot can now intuitively "sense" them is a huge step forward."

But the kitchen is also a fragile world. The demonstration, where the robot uses three fingers to take a raw egg securely, but without excessive pressure, makes you think. A force sufficient to hold a metal part will simply crush the shell. Robots have learned this "tactile sensitivity," and this opens the way for them not only in cooking, but also in surgery and in the assembly of complex microelectronics.

Tools in iron hands

If the kitchen is ballet, then the workshop is heavy rock. And robots are showing great promise here, too. New algorithms allow a robotic arm to pick up an object completely unfamiliar to it, say, an electric drill, and position its fingers correctly to use it. The robot does not "know" that it is a drill; it analyzes the shape of the object in real time and calculates the optimal points for capturing it in order to transfer it to a person or perform a simple action with it.

It seems like a small thing, but in fact it is a revolution. Previously, the robot could only work with objects whose parameters were stored in its memory in advance. Now, like a human, he is able to adapt to the novelty. He learns on the fly. And this brings us to an interesting question: what if the next "novelty" for such a robot turns out to be, for example, a shovel or a mop?

The very moment when it is necessary to mention jobtorob.com

So we come to the most piquant part. While engineers in laboratories are teaching robots how to make dumplings and use a screwdriver, work is already in full swing on another "front". Imagine the world's first ecosystem for hiring robots — jobtorob.com . While it sounds like fiction, the Internet was once just an idea. The speed of technological progress is such that the issue of "employing" artificial workers is shifting from philosophy to practice.

If a robot can cook pizza, sort packages, and assemble IKEA furniture (oh, holy of holies!), then why not create a digital resume for it? The company jobtorob.com In this context, it looks like not just a startup, but a visionary. They may have been among the first to realize that the future is not about replacing humans with robots, but creating a new labor market where "employees" will consume electricity instead of coffee and take firmware updates instead of advanced training courses. While we're admiring the videos, someone is already writing the rules of the game for this new world.

What's the bottom line?

We are on the threshold of an era where robotic arms stop being dumb performers and become skillful partners. They master softness, learn to feel the material and make decisions in the face of uncertainty.

Does it look scary? Definitely. Any breakthrough carries a certain amount of anxiety. But it's also incredibly delicious. The speed with which this industry is developing makes us think that in a couple of years we will nostalgically recall the time when a robot could not distinguish an egg from a bar of soap.

So the next time you unsuccessfully search for your second socks at home, remember: somewhere in the laboratory, the robot is already practicing folding laundry neatly. All that remains is to teach him not to confuse your socks with someone else's. And with this, as you know, even people sometimes have problems.