Ask, Navigate, Repeat: Why Socially Aware Agents Are the Next Frontier
Opening — Why this matters now The AI industry has spent the past two years obsessing over what large models can say. Less attention has gone to what they can do—and, more importantly, how they behave around humans. As robotics companies race to deploy humanoid form factors and VR environments inch closer to training grounds for embodied agents, we face a new tension: agents that can follow instructions aren’t necessarily agents that can ask, adapt, or navigate socially. ...