LAB / WMSI-EXP-050

Demonstration-as-Prompt.

Can an embodied system infer a task from one demonstration without fine-tuning?

STATUS / PROTOCOL DRAFTPRIORITY / P2 — Later / expensiveREGISTRY / 26 SEP 2026 · V1.0

01 / QUESTION

Robotics and Embodied AI

Can an embodied system infer a task from one demonstration without fine-tuning?

PLANNED RESEARCH

This is a protocol scaffold, not a completed experiment or a frozen execution plan. No measured effect or research conclusion is claimed here.

Hypothesis to test

The manipulation described below produces a reproducible, condition-specific change in the measured system behavior or internal state that is not explained by the ordinary controls.

Ordinary competing explanation

The observed pattern is explained by ordinary sampling variation, prompt/representation artifacts, surface lexical cues, evaluator bias, or the known product/runtime mechanics captured by the controls.

02 / PLANNED DESIGN

How we intend to test it

Show one demonstration, vary viewpoint/environment, request execution.

Controls

Language-only instruction; multiple demonstrations; shuffled demo.

What we would measure

Task success, generalization, correction count.

Access and instruments

Physical audio or robotics equipment. This describes access requirements, not verified readiness on our Spark.

Robot/simulator; video capture.

Before a full run

Feasibility=HARDWARE; priority=P2. Before confirmatory execution, run a small pilot to estimate variance/cost, freeze the scoring rules, and assign a run-count target.

Model revisions, final prompts, sample sizes, cost limits, and scoring rules must be settled through the pilot and protocol-freeze process.

03 / INTERPRETATION

What could fool us

Sim/real mismatch, sensor drift, uncontrolled physical environment.

What would weaken the idea

If performance depends on memorizing viewpoint specifics, one-shot embodied inference is weak.

Observation, inference, speculation, unknowns, and apparatus errors will be labeled separately. One striking transcript cannot establish a general effect.

04 / RECORD

Evidence we plan to preserve

Simulation seed, robot telemetry, video, action log, safety stops, environment state.

Planned visual evidence

Trajectory comparison; success matrix.

No research runs or raw datasets are published for this experiment. The September 26, 2026 registry and protocol compendium (version 1.0) are the sources for this planning record.

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