Manipulation

Dexterity

Dexterity is a robot's capacity to skillfully control interaction with objects, encompassing precise finger and arm coordination, regulation of contact forces, in-hand repositioning, and tool use. It is often characterized by the variety of grasp types and manipulation primitives a system can execute and the object diversity it tolerates. Human-level dexterity combines roughly two dozen hand DOF with dense tactile feedback, a combination robots have not yet matched.

Why it matters for physical AI

Most economically valuable manual work, from assembly to food preparation, demands dexterity beyond parallel-jaw pick-and-place. Closing the dexterity gap is widely viewed as a defining milestone for general-purpose robots.