Spontaneous Theory of Mind for Artificial Intelligence

Existing approaches to Theory of Mind (ToM) in Artificial Intelligence (AI) overemphasize prompted, or cue-based, ToM, which may limit our collective ability to develop Artificial Social Intelligence (ASI). Drawing from research in computer science, cognitive science, and related disciplines, we con...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors Gurney, Nikolos, Pynadath, David V, Ustun, Volkan
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published 16.02.2024
Subjects
Computer Science - Artificial Intelligence
Computer Science - Human-Computer Interaction
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Summary:Existing approaches to Theory of Mind (ToM) in Artificial Intelligence (AI) overemphasize prompted, or cue-based, ToM, which may limit our collective ability to develop Artificial Social Intelligence (ASI). Drawing from research in computer science, cognitive science, and related disciplines, we contrast prompted ToM with what we call spontaneous ToM -- reasoning about others' mental states that is grounded in unintentional, possibly uncontrollable cognitive functions. We argue for a principled approach to studying and developing AI ToM and suggest that a robust, or general, ASI will respond to prompts \textit{and} spontaneously engage in social reasoning.
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.2402.13272