https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/7x5dye/watch-this-humanoid-robot-hand-solve-a-rubiks-cube

Researchers have successfully trained a neural network to solve a Rubik’s Cube with a single human-like robot hand, bringing us one step closer to being outwitted by our inevitable robotic overlords.

OpenAI, the San Francisco–based for-profit AI research lab, this week released a study documenting the development of an AI-linked robotic hand named Dactyl. Since May of 2017, the researchers have been trying to train Dactyl to intelligently solve the Rubik’s Cube. For robotic systems built specifically to solve the puzzle, the Rubik’s Cube hasn’t traditionally posed much of a challenge. Some such systems have been shown to solve the puzzle in under a second, well below the previous human record of five seconds. Those robots don't use humanoid hands, though. While plenty of specialty robots can solve the Rubik’s Cube quickly, Dactyl is different. It’s built from the ground up to intelligently solve complex tasks in simulation before attempting them in the real world, an early step in the quest for smarter robots capable of complex tasks that require not only complicated physical manipulation, but some degree of thought.