This assumes very slow AI progress. I'm not one to hype up LLMs, but I would never claim it'll take 200 years before an AI can untangle a sewing machine with robot hands. Stuffing an envelope and applying a stamp? My bet is less than 20 years. That's a level of tactility that can do a tremendous amount of real-world activity. And the capability of a high end robot controlled by a human keeps expanding, so in the hypothetical "AGI" scenario the flood fill gets pretty big.
I guess it's time to bring up "Why today's humanoids won't learn dexterity":
Self-driving looks like a much easier problem, it has gotten a massive amount of investment in the last decade, and it's not fully solved yet. Compared to that your 20 years estimate sounds way too optimistic.
I don't think driving looks easier than untangling. You can untangle nice and slow with little outside involvement. When it comes to self-driving at 25mph without traffic, it pretty much is a solved problem.
I think this untangling problem gets underestimated because people aren't consciously aware of what they're using to analyze and address a tangle. The input is not all vision - you've got sensation in your fingers giving you feedback with which you update your model of the problem as you progress. The operation varies in strength depending on so many factors.
At the point you have enough sensor input, enough force application variability, and the power to process this in the ballpark of real-time (comparable to a human brain), you now have a being who's going to advocate for the removal of slavery and the application of rights.
On the other hand a dumb computer can figure out the exact topology of the threads.
Overall, I love this essay. However, the entire argument hinges on one assertion, buried about halfway through:
> Robots are improving fast, but I do not believe that this cute fellow will be stuffing envelopes or affixing stamps anytime soon.
Is this correct? I don't know. If it's wrong... well, then there's a missing pixel in the magic circle, and flood fill will make the whole thing recognizable.