Beyond Theory of Mind in Robotics

Computer Science > Artificial Intelligence [Submitted on 12 Mar 2026] Beyond Theory of Mind in Robotics Malte F. Jung Theory of Mind, the capacity to explain and predict behavior by inferring hidden mental states, has become the dominant paradigm for social interaction in robotics. Yet ToM rests on three assumptions that poorly capture how most social interaction actually unfolds: that meaning travels inside-out from hidden states to observable behavior; that understanding requires detached inference rather than participation; and that the meaning of behavior is fixed and available to a passive observer. Drawing on ethnomethodology, conversation analysis, and participatory sense-making, I argue that social meaning is not decoded from behavior but produced through moment-to-moment coordination between agents. This interactional foundation has direct implications for robot design: shifting from internal state modeling toward policies for sustaining coordination, from observer-based inference toward active participation, and from fixed behavioral meaning toward meaning potential stabilized through response. Subjects: Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI); Human-Computer Interaction (cs.HC) Cite as: arXiv:2604.09612 [cs.AI]   (or arXiv:2604.09612v1 [cs.AI] for this version)   https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2604.09612 Focus to learn more Submission history From: Malte Jung [view email] [v1] Thu, 12 Mar 2026 19:34:53 UTC (693 KB) Access Paper: view license Current browse context: cs.AI < prev   |   next > new | recent | 2026-04 Change to browse by: cs cs.HC References & Citations NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar Export BibTeX Citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Demos Related Papers About arXivLabs Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)