“If someone asks you to hand them a wrench from a table full of different sized wrenches, you’d probably pause and ask, “which one?” Robotics researchers from Brown University have now developed an algorithm that lets robots do the same thing — ask for clarification when they’re not sure what a person wants. The research, which will be presented this spring at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Singapore, comes from Brown’s Humans to Robots Lab led by computer science professor Stefanie Tellex. Her work focuses on human-robot collaboration — making robots that can be good helpers to people at home and in the workplace.”