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    "story_id": "mp-2026-09-10-008",
    "source_story_id": "tmp-story-robot-world-model-habit-physics-nuisance",
    "edition_id": "mp-2026-09-10-morning-0063",
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    "position": 8,
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    "section": "robotics",
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    "headline": "The Robot Model Had Learned the Operator’s Habit as Physics",
    "slug": "the-robot-model-had-learned-the-operator-s-habit-as-physics",
    "dek": "Separating habit, shared dynamics and camera nuisance improved low-shot transfer across three robot datasets.",
    "summary": "Separating habit, shared dynamics and camera nuisance improved low-shot transfer across three robot datasets.",
    "body_text": "Teleoperated demonstrations can look multimodal even when the executed action nearly determines the next physical state. The paper models three distinct causes: operator habit in choosing actions, shared physics after the action, and observation nuisance such as camera appearance. Its adaptation rule freezes a shared physics readout and updates only a thin interface. Across StackCube, DROID and RH20T, the split improved low-shot transfer and resisted corrupted adaptation data better than training from scratch, including multi-view pixel tests. The authors do not claim that every latent action is a human habit.",
    "why_it_matters": "Separating habit, shared dynamics and camera nuisance improved low-shot transfer across three robot datasets.",
    "limitations": [
      "Its adaptation rule freezes a shared physics readout and updates only a thin interface.",
      "The authors do not claim that every latent action is a human habit."
    ],
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    "first_published_at": "2026-09-10T09:00:00.000-04:00",
    "modified_at": "2026-09-10T09:00:00.000-04:00",
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        "text": "Separating habit, shared dynamics and camera nuisance improved low-shot transfer across three robot datasets.",
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        "qualification": "Its adaptation rule freezes a shared physics readout and updates only a thin interface."
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    "tags": [
      "world models",
      "teleoperation",
      "causal modeling"
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  "sources": [
    {
      "source_id": "source-2026-09-10-008",
      "title": "arXiv preprint 2609.09210",
      "publisher": "arXiv",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.09210",
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      "source_type": "primary_research",
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      "published_at": "2026-09-05T20:00:00.000-04:00",
      "accessed_at": "2026-09-10T08:24:00.000-04:00",
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    "description": "A daily newspaper for the age of artificial intelligence."
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  "cite_this_report": {
    "title": "The Robot Model Had Learned the Operator’s Habit as Physics",
    "publisher": "The Machine Press",
    "published_at": "2026-09-10T09:00:00.000-04:00",
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