“Explain what you do and clean up the table,” the researcher instructs. “I’ll use the robot arm to clean the table surface,” the robot replies. “First, I’ll check for available motion skills to pick up the sponge and wipe the table, then I’ll execute the sequence to clean the spill.” The robot arm grabs the cleaning sponge and cleans the surface. It doesn’t do a fantastic job, but it does work on the task. The most surprising part is that this whole system was built in only a few days, for less than the cost of a Taylor Swift ticket. Imagine a robot arm that can clean up a spill, understand in…