A robotic hand solving Rubik’s cube has all the makings of hype headlines, but underlying OpenAI’s latest achievement is some subtler, more interesting science.

This robotic hand is just as dextrous in the dark as it is when it can “see” its surroundings, just like a human hand is when trying to feel around for something. This is proprioceptive ...

What’s more, the hand could point the way to better designs for robot limbs. Most artificial limbs require complex mechanisms to control all their moving parts, but that might be overkill.

How long the robot hand took to solve the Rubik’s cube depended on how jumbled the cube was, with the best attempt taking around 3 minutes, says Welinder.