A Computable Game-Theoretic Framework for Multi-Agent Theory of Mind
Abstract
Originating in psychology, (ToM) has attracted significant attention across multiple research communities, especially logic, economics, and robotics. Most psychological work does not aim at formalizing those central concepts, namely , , and , to automate a ToM-based computational process, which, by contrast, has been extensively studied by logicians. In this paper, we offer a different perspective by proposing a computational framework viewed through the lens of game theory. On the one hand, the framework prescribes how to make boudedly rational decisions while maintaining a theory of mind about others (and recursively, each of the others holding a theory of mind about the rest); on the other hand, it employs statistical techniques and approximate solutions to retain computability of the inherent computational problem.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2511.22536,
title = {A Computable Game-Theoretic Framework for Multi-Agent Theory of Mind},
author = {Fengming Zhu and Yuxin Pan and Xiaomeng Zhu and Fangzhen Lin},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2511.22536},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
Ongoing work. A preliminary version has been accepted by the AAAI 2026 Theory of Mind for AI (ToM4AI) Workshop