The example, of opening a package of dates, is actually pretty complex task even for humans. A child or even an adult with weaker fingers won't be able to do so

The example, of opening a package of dates, is actually pretty complex task even for humans. A child or even an adult with weaker fingers won't be able to do so. There are plenty of kitchen tasks which are way easier for robot, for exampling making a bowl of cereal. Which brings me to the second point. You say: > The only viable hardware for a robot meant to do any task in human spaces is an adult-sized humanoid, with two-arms, two-legs, and five fingers on each hand. but I think this is only true if robot is constrained to using tools designed for humans. In the strawberry example, the knife is designed for multiple fingers, and cutting board has no elevated border to work well with the human knifes. I think a properly designed "kitchen arm" (with maybe compliant/under-actuated fingers, a few sharp blades, a vacuum grip, etc..) as well as robot utensils (like uneven cutting boards that the food does not roll off from) would allow robots to do a large fraction of the kitchen tasks. And maybe your bag of dates would be cut open instead of opened nicely -- but you'd still get to eat them.