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Comment by sayamqazi | Hacker News Reader

I have thought up a HOLY GRAIL test for physical AI. "Open a door given a keyring". It involves vision, dexterity, understanding of physical constraints etc. I find it insane that our hands do this so casually.

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https://generalrobots.substack.com/p/benjies-humanoid-olympi... "Use a key", about halfway down

Can you explain in more detail (doors vary massively, as do keyrings)

While I have no opinion on the "holy grail" part, I think them varying massively is the point.

A lot of locks require a bit of finesse as well, like pulling the door towards you or pulling the key out just the right amount, which would be an interesting challenge. Especially if the technique isn't known ahead of time. Given enough time (and frustration), people can generally figure the "finesse" aspect out for a lock.

I've been outsmarted by a door more than once in my life.

We actually have notes taped on two of our doors, with instructions of how to get the locks to line up depending on the season. Another door requires a hard shove during the summer, and a slight pull back during the winter. Someday we'll replace that door with a metal door and get it framed nicely. But we've been saying that for 12 years!

> But we've been saying that for 12 years!

Welcome, fellow traveler!

So many repliers have seemed to miss the truly hard part i.e. "keyring" it has many keys and the robot needs to see, recognize and juggle the keyring to only push the correct key in the hole. A human can do this so easily with a single hand

Quite similar to the "coffee test" of Steve Wozniak.

I have to rattle the key around a bit in the lock to get the lock to turn. Good luck designing a robot to figure out it needs to rattle the key in a certain way. Or to realize that the door needs to be pulled or pushed a bit while turning the key, so the bolt doesn't jam in the door jamb.

One of my doors needs to be pulled upwards in order to open/close it. (Due to slowly pulling the doorframe out of alignment over time.)

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