On: Where are the robotic bricklayers?

[cratermoon]

Where's the robot that can actually pick up and move pieces on standard chessboard, with no special guidelines or restrictions on pieces?

[jpindar → cratermoon]

Seriously?

There's lots of them on YouTube. Here's one with two different robots.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65YDAXfSAWw

[cratermoon → jpindar]

Nope. Those are pre-programmed to know "the board is here", "the pieces start here". Give them a random (but still legal) position, ask them to make the best legal move. See if they can even find a piece

Quick test: replace any pawn with a queen. See if the bot notices.

[jpindar → cratermoon]

There are plenty of other videos that demonstrate computer vision detecting chess pieces.