Moravec's paradox is the observation that adult level reasoning is comparatively easy for a computer, while the perception and mobility of a one year old are hard.
Why it sounds backwards
- chess, algebra and intelligence tests were solved early, and they feel difficult to people
- walking, grasping and recognising a cluttered scene feel effortless to people, and they remain hard for machines
- the skills that feel easy to us are the ones evolution spent the longest building, so they are not simple at all
Why robotics is hard
- traditional control needs precise dynamics models of the robot and its environment
- the robot interacts with the real physical world, where contact, friction and noise are messy
- Moravec's paradox, because perception and movement carry most of the difficulty
Simulation software does exist, so the absence of simulators is never the reason.
This is the motivation behind learned policies such as VLA.