Goal inference using reward-producing programs in a novel physics environment

Bibtex entry:

@inproceedings{davidson2025physicsgoals,
	abstract = {A child invents a game, describes its rules, and in an instant, we can play it, judge progress, and even suggest new variations. 
What mental representations enable such flexible reasoning?  We build on recent work formalizing naturally expressed goals as a type of program, grounding linguistic descriptions into precise scoring systems. To support this notion, we study human-created objectives in a physics game environment. We leverage the formal representations to quantitatively analyze relationships between reward geometry, goal complexity, and perceived difficulty. We then propose a proof-of-concept of a computational goal inference method using these program representations and behavioral demonstrations, offering a concrete proposal of how humans reason about others' goals.},
	address = {Austin, TX},
	author = {Davidson, G. and Todd, G. and Colas, C. and Chu, J. and Togelius, J. and Tenenbaum, J.B. and Gureckis, T. M. and Lake, B.M.},
	booktitle = {Proceedings of the 47th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society},
	keywords = {goals, play, goal inference, program synthesis, domain-specific language, physics environment},
	organization = {Cognitive Science Society},
	publisher = {Cognitive Science Society},
	title = {Goal inference using reward-producing programs in a novel physics environment},
	year = {2025}}

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