Robotics has been trying the same ideas for the last who knows how many years. They still believe it will work now, somehow. Perhaps it goes beyond the brightest minds at Google that people can grasp things with their eyes closed. That we don't need to see to grasp. But designing good robots with tactile sensors is too much for our top researchers.
I'm a bit confused. Ex-Googler so maybe I'm just spoiled by access to non-public information? But I'm fairly sure there's plenty of public material of Google robots gripping. Is it a play on words? Like, "we don't need to see to grasp", but obviously that isn't what you meant. We just don't need to if we saw it previously, and it hadn't moved. EDIT: It does look like the video demonstrates this, including why you can…
Those are realistically the 'natural' developments in the domain knowledge of Robotics/Computer Science.
However, what GP (I think) is raising is the blind spot that robotics currently has on proprioception and tactile sensing at the end-effector as well as a along the kinematic chain.
As in you can accomplish this with just kinematic position and force feedback and Visual servoing. But if you think of any dexterous primate they will handle an object and perceive texture, compliance, brittleness etc in a much richer way then any state-of-the art robotic end-effector.
Unless you devote significant research to creating miniaturized sensors that give a robot an approximation of the information rich sources in human skin, connective tissue, muscle, joints (tactil sensors, tensile sensor, vibration sensors, Force sensors) that blind spot remains.