1. A robotic system comprising: a dexterous robot having a plurality of robotic joints, actuators configured for moving the robotic joints, and sensors configured for measuring a characteristic of a corresponding one of the robotic joints, and for transmitting the characteristics as a second set of sensor signals; and a controller configured for receiving the sensor signals, wherein the controller includes a state classification module and: tangible, non-transitory memory on which is recorded a plurality of classes of a first set of sensor signals and computer-executable instructions for executing a first or second divergent work task from an arbitrary number of possible task execution paths; and a processor configured for executing the instructions from the tangible, non-transitory memory to thereby cause the controller to: receive the second set of sensor signals from the sensors; classify the received second set of sensor signals into one of the recorded classes via the state classification module; determine a present system state of the robot using the class of the classified received signals; and execute the first or second divergent work task when the determined present system state of the robot is a respective first or second system state.