Is my knowledge out of date, or is this a step change in robotics capabilities? Boston Dynamics robots are impressive, but this seems way beyond what their robots have been able to do.
Caveat - I am way out of my depth here as I focus on Software AI, but:
I can't see any major breaks from SayCan looking at this information. When studying robotics, Degrees of Freedom/basic Arms and mechanisms (tension, grip, extension, types of joint etc) are a typical case study. However, I do not think there has been any practical progress (with the lack of data) in about 20 years now, besides increased refinement from materials science (e.g. detection of soft materials) allowing some better grip but not particularly better dynamic movement(e.g. walking remains badly solved compared to the efficiency/mechanism of humans).
It's certainly an expansion of software capabilities with respect to what Boston Dynamics typically highlights in their videos.
With that said, Boston Dynamics is likely to have their own version of this in the works if not already live. They're videos just tend to highlight advancements in both hardware and software that are likely to go viral and connect with non-technical viewers.
You can already see it in some of BD's latest videos.
The trouble Atlas had taking the car parts off the slotted shelf makes it seem like they're quite a bit further away, given the hand dexterity it takes to fold clothes.
