Spontaneous Theory of Mind for Artificial Intelligence

TL;DR

This paper advocates for developing spontaneous Theory of Mind in AI, emphasizing unprompted social reasoning to enhance Artificial Social Intelligence beyond cue-based methods.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of spontaneous ToM, contrasting it with prompted ToM, and argues for a new approach to AI social reasoning grounded in cognitive science.

Findings

Spontaneous ToM involves unintentional mental state reasoning.

A robust ASI should respond to prompts and engage in spontaneous social reasoning.

The paper proposes a principled framework for studying AI ToM.

Abstract

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.