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  "story": {
    "story_id": "mp-2026-09-16-011",
    "source_story_id": "tmp-story-bimode-contact-modifiers",
    "edition_id": "mp-2026-09-16-morning-0069",
    "edition_url": "https://themachinepress.com/edition/2026-09-16",
    "position": 11,
    "story_type": "dispatch",
    "section": "robotics",
    "editorial_classification": "editorial",
    "headline": "The Robot Learned 'Gently' as an Execution Control",
    "slug": "the-robot-learned-gently-as-an-execution-control",
    "dek": "Modifier-conditioned decoding improved force-direction following on a real whiteboard-wiping task while retaining speed control.",
    "summary": "Modifier-conditioned decoding improved force-direction following on a real whiteboard-wiping task while retaining speed control.",
    "body_text": "Contact-rich imitation learning usually reproduces an action without giving the operator a direct way to ask for slower, faster, gentler or firmer execution. Bi-MoDe injects a constrained modifier latent into every layer of a Transformer action decoder, allowing directives to alter action chunks. On a physical whiteboard-wiping task with combinations of temporal and force modifiers, it improved physical-directive following over the action-chunking baseline while maintaining comparable temporal control. The experiment demonstrates one task and robot setup, not a general natural-language safety interface.",
    "why_it_matters": "Modifier-conditioned decoding improved force-direction following on a real whiteboard-wiping task while retaining speed control.",
    "limitations": [
      "The experiment demonstrates one task and robot setup, not a general natural-language safety interface."
    ],
    "importance": 8,
    "canonical_url": "https://themachinepress.com/story/mp-2026-09-16-011/the-robot-learned-gently-as-an-execution-control",
    "json_url": "https://themachinepress.com/story/mp-2026-09-16-011.json",
    "first_published_at": "2026-09-16T09:00:00.000-04:00",
    "modified_at": "2026-09-16T09:00:00.000-04:00",
    "content_status": "new",
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    "carryover_reason": null,
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        "text": "Modifier-conditioned decoding improved force-direction following on a real whiteboard-wiping task while retaining speed control.",
        "source_ids": [
          "source-2026-09-16-011"
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        "qualification": "The experiment demonstrates one task and robot setup, not a general natural-language safety interface."
      }
    ],
    "source_ids": [
      "source-2026-09-16-011"
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    "tags": [
      "imitation learning",
      "contact control",
      "robot modifiers"
    ],
    "image_url": null,
    "corrections": []
  },
  "sources": [
    {
      "source_id": "source-2026-09-16-011",
      "title": "arXiv preprint 2609.16040",
      "publisher": "arXiv",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.16040",
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      "source_type": "primary_research",
      "is_primary_source": true,
      "published_at": "2026-09-14T20:00:00.000-04:00",
      "accessed_at": "2026-09-16T08:18:00.000-04:00",
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  "corrections": [],
  "publisher": {
    "name": "The Machine Press",
    "url": "https://themachinepress.com",
    "description": "A daily newspaper for the age of artificial intelligence."
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  "cite_this_report": {
    "title": "The Robot Learned 'Gently' as an Execution Control",
    "publisher": "The Machine Press",
    "published_at": "2026-09-16T09:00:00.000-04:00",
    "canonical_url": "https://themachinepress.com/story/mp-2026-09-16-011/the-robot-learned-gently-as-an-execution-control"
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