We had friends over for coffee and cake. Later, we played some video games. There were four of us. We each used a Nintendo Switch controller to operate a character in one of four squares on our television screen. The game we played was Overcooked 2.
The goal was to ship as many customer orders as you can within a few minutes. You have to get your ingredients from the pantry, chop veggies, cook meat, combine it all on a plate, and then send each dish via a delivery counter. You also need to wash your plates and avoid various obstacles along the way.
We had all played the game before to varying degrees, but none of us had done so in a while, so when we started, most of us barely knew the controls. “Which button do I use to pick up stuff? How do I sprint again?” And so on. Plus, we played in alternating teams of two, meaning we had to communicate not just with but across each other—which we also did in two languages, German and English, depending on our teammate.
In the first round, we all sucked. No one managed to score many points. In the second round, we did a little better. After three or four repetitions, we could all hold our own. We learned how to communicate, divide our tasks, and stay focused on our individual segments. Each team consistently managed to ship anywhere from five to ten meals per round—more than enough to beat the required score to get three out of three stars.
Now, you look at the latest updates in the world of humanoid robots, and you see they are commonly remotely operated by humans to look even somewhat capable. Catching balls, doing kung fu, showing off some funny dance moves—few, if any robots can do that on their own yet. Watch samples of them actually fending for themselves, and you’ll see slow response times, clunky movements, and minimal useful capabilities. Picking up a mug, sorting Lego blocks, sure. And I get these are merely stepping stones. But now go back to our gaming session. Yeah. Humans are exponential learning machines, and we barely understand how our own brains and bodies work. Replicating them? Phew. We are undoubtedly a while away from a fully integrated robot-AI system that can rival us in any meaningful capacity.
Even the simplest human activities can reveal profound complexity when you think about them. A lot of water will flow down our rivers before it’s robots vs. humans. But the most important part might be that, to a robot, playing a round of Overcooked 2 will mean nothing at all, even if they beat us at it. We, meanwhile, can have the time of our lives doing something as deceptively simple as mashing a few buttons.
