The Theory of Mind Utility: A Formal Account of Mentalizing
Quick summary
arXiv:2606.12721v3 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Inferring another person's beliefs requires reconstructing their information access history: what they encountered, in what order, from whom, and with what credibility. Existing formal accounts of theory of mind generally treat beliefs as given. We introduce the Theory of Mind Utility (ToM-U), a computational-level theory of how beliefs are formed from information-access history. ToM-U represents a person's epistemic situation as a Local Epistemic World Model (LEWM): a directed typed graph linking agents, information, and belief-like states.
Key takeaways
- arXiv:2606.12721v3 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Inferring another person's beliefs requires reconstructing their information access history: what they encountered, in what order, from whom, and with what credibility.
- Existing formal accounts of theory of mind generally treat beliefs as given.
- We introduce the Theory of Mind Utility (ToM-U), a computational-level theory of how beliefs are formed from information-access history.
Why it matters
“The Theory of Mind Utility: A Formal Account of Mentalizing” should be evaluated beyond branding and benchmark scores. Its practical importance will emerge in task accuracy, latency, unit cost, safety and integration with real workflows.
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