Dr. Julie A. Shah [is] an assistant professor in the department of aeronautics and astronautics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. . .  In a recent study, Dr. Shah and a student had human-robot teams perform a chore borrowed from the assembly line: the humans placed screws and the robots did the drilling. Then the teammates exchanged jobs and the robots observed the humans drill.

“The robot gathers information on how the person does the drilling,” adding that information to its algorithms, Dr. Shah said. “The robot isn’t learning one optimal way to drill. Instead it is learning a teammate’s preferences, and how to cooperate.”

When the cross-trained teams resumed their original roles, both robots and people did their jobs more efficiently, the study found.

Anne Eisenberg, “Freed From Its Cage, the Gentler Robot” (NYT Business Section, March 31, 2013) p.7.