Manipulation

Tool Use

Tool use is a robot's employment of grasped objects, such as spatulas, screwdrivers, hooks, or hammers, to act on the world in ways its bare end-effector cannot. It requires reasoning about the tool's extended kinematics and contact dynamics, selecting grasps that afford the intended action, and adapting to the tool's geometry, and it has long served as a benchmark of physical intelligence spanning classical affordance learning through modern language-conditioned policies.

Why it matters for physical AI

Human environments are built around tools, so general-purpose robots must wield them rather than requiring specialized hardware per task, making tool use a key capability milestone for manipulation foundation models.