The article
Robots when working with humans absolutely must be safe to use around humans. End of story. In the pursuit of furthering this safety this Georgia Tech bot allows it to "spy" on its human partner. The sensors that are put on the human allow the robot to tell whether the human is trying to move the lever in the picture to left forward, backwards, or just trying to hold it in place.
future implications
Right now, the sensors needed for this idea are rather extensive and costly and hopefully in the future these senors could be reduced to something more akin to an arm band or something of similar simplicity in usage and distribution. In the future this could make robot human cooperation safer and more efficient.