Inside an RV plant in northern Indiana, a curved fiberglass countertop that used to take an hour to hand-finish now leaves the line in six minutes. Sanding and polishing a complex surface to a uniform sheen had long resisted autonomous finishing, and for a counterintuitive reason: the variation inherent in geometry and surface condition made it the hardest job on the floor to teach a machine. By 2023, more than four million industrial robots were operating on factory floors worldwide, according