Robotics

Robots That Know When They’re Sure: Confidence for Tool Invention

Kari Jaaskelainen

21 Nov 2025 — 1 min read

Robots are great at repeating tasks—but not at knowing when to trust their own choices. This study brings metacognition (self-monitoring) to robots by giving them a sense of confidence in each decision.

Inspired by neuroscience, the architecture treats confidence as a second-order judgment about actions.
In tests on autonomous tool invention, the robot gauges how reliable its plan is before acting.
Confidence guides when to explore alternatives, request more information, or proceed—boosting robustness in the messy real world.

By monitoring their own embodied actions, confidence-informed robots can make safer, smarter decisions and allocate effort where it matters.

Why it matters: Metacognitive robots could adapt faster, fail less dramatically, and tackle open-ended tasks like inventing tools on the fly.

Read the paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.16390v1

Paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.16390v1

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Robotics AI Metacognition Confidence ToolUse ToolInvention EmbodiedAI Neuroscience Research

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