Post by Andreessen Horowitz

Consider what a general-purpose robot must do to fold a towel. Physics priors. Continuous motor commands at 20Hz+. Simulation-generated training data. Tactile feedback. Closed-loop recovery. This is why robotics is a frontier system rather than a mature engineering discipline with better tools. The primitives do not merely improve existing robotic capabilities; they unlock categories of manipulation, locomotion, and interaction that were previously impossible outside of narrowly controlled industrial settings.