Anthropic Acquires Physical Intelligence: The Battle for AI's 'Last Mile' Deployment

There's an old cliché in retail circles: selecting products is like playing cards; having good cards is luck, but playing them well is skill. Recent rumors about AI acquisitions remind me of Hema's (Freshippo) dilemma back then regarding smart replenishment: should they continue optimizing algorithm accuracy, or just shove the algorithms into store refrigeration systems and get them running first? The flirtation between Anthropic and Physical Intelligence is essentially an amplified version of this question—should AI companies touch "hands" and "feet"?