crevices rule

It just has to come out on the other end...

With less pinch points?

Nope. Too articulated. Its a sex tentacle. Much better.

Looking at it, I wouldn't be surprised if "can crawl up the bum" was one of the stated goals of the project. I can see medical applications for a soft robot that navigates tight spaces. Let's hope "can crawl out the bum" is on the roadmap.

Attach a long ass rope on its base.

'Anything is a sex toy if you're brave enough.'

Abe Lincoln.

Tbh they probably did, there's likely more profit in it as a luxury sex toy than in prosthetics or manufacturing.

I work in prosthetics and have seen a couple of tentacle-like terminal end devices made over the years, but they all fail to truly be useful for anything.

They fall into the category of being not efficient enough for specific or universal uses. For something like manufacturing they aren't as efficient as building a specific tool for a specific purpose, and for something like a prosthetic they aren't useful enough to overcome the fact that most things we interact with everyday are made to work with something in the shape of a hand.

So an expensive space dildo is likely the most profitable option if they can bring it to market at an achievable price. But honestly, most of these things are mainly created as an eye grabbing marketing scheme for some universities research department.