TL;DR
The robots of 1960s magazine covers needed a brain that could run a body and do a chore it had never been programmed for. The brain part is arriving. Google DeepMind's newest model directs an entire humanoid body, plans jobs that take several minutes, and can learn a new robot from fewer than 200 examples. A German rival has added touch, hearing and memory. The catch is the hands: Google's own tests show its robot removing light bulbs 92% of the time but installing them only 36%, about one try in three. And the data that teaches these machines is being recorded by people in China paid about $600 to $900 a month to fold laundry on camera. A robot that does the chores is now an engineering race, not a fantasy, but it is not in anyone's home yet, and no company has set a date for one.
Below the line, for paid subscribers: The full story: where it stands, how we got here and what's dated next; our Odds board on 5 milestones, starting with "Google opens its full-body Gemini Robotics 2 model beyond early partners by 2027"; our labeled speculation on what it adds up to; and every source.