< 3c The misconception about bottom up robotics
In contrast to a famous myth, the bottleneck is not to program the robot itself. But it has to do with defining the cost function. The initial situation is, that a teleoperated robot is available. For example a robot arm or a remote controlled car. What is missing is a numerical judgement if the actions of the robot are pleasant or not.
In most cases this decision is made by humans but not by algorithm. And this missing scoring system prevents that the task can be automated. So the challenge is to create a software which is judging about a teleoperated robot. For example if the car collides with an obstacle the costs are high and if the car stays on the lane the costs are low.
Such an algorithm or software is mostly a mathematical equation. It takes features as input and determines the cost value as output. This processing step is the core element of a virtual referee and the bottleneck in today's robotics. There is a large difference is such a scoring system is available or if it is missing.