Show Your Robots How to do Chores

The ultimate desire.  Or perhaps have someone else show a robot how to do your chores better.  And archive the results for use.  Much like the inclusion of 'planning with uncertain specifications' ... the humanlike planning ability to simultaneously weigh many ambiguous — and potentially contradictory — requirements ... '

Showing robots how to do your chores
By observing humans, robots learn to perform complex tasks, such as setting a table.
Watch Video at this post.
Rob Matheson | MIT News Office

Training interactive robots may one day be an easy job for everyone, even those without programming expertise. Roboticists are developing automated robots that can learn new tasks solely by observing humans. At home, you might someday show a domestic robot how to do routine chores. In the workplace, you could train robots like new employees, showing them how to perform many duties.

Making progress on that vision, MIT researchers have designed a system that lets these types of robots learn complicated tasks that would otherwise stymie them with too many confusing rules. One such task is setting a dinner table under certain conditions.  

At its core, the researchers’ “Planning with Uncertain Specifications” (PUnS) system gives robots the humanlike planning ability to simultaneously weigh many ambiguous — and potentially contradictory — requirements to reach an end goal. In doing so, the system always chooses the most likely action to take, based on a “belief” about some probable specifications for the task it is supposed to perform.   .... "