Drowning in Degrees of Freedom: One Agent for Every Task

James, Steven

doi:10.24963/ijcai.2026/906

Drowning in Degrees of Freedom: One Agent for Every Task

Download BibTeX Cite

Proceedings of the Thirty-Fifth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence. Early Career Spotlight. Pages 8161-8166.

https://doi.org/10.24963/ijcai.2026/906

Keywords

AI: Machine Learning
AI: Knowledge Representation and Reasoning
AI: Robotics

Abstract

We describe a research programme aimed at the construction of a single, generally intelligent agent - one competent across all tasks rather than skilled at any one. Such an agent must act in the real world through a rich sensorimotor interface, with sensors and actuators general enough for any task it may face. But that same richness makes any single task nearly impossible to learn directly. We argue that the resolution lies in abstraction, and survey our work towards this goal: discovering skills from experience, deriving compact models from those skills, and transferring both to new tasks. Skills, in particular, can be composed so that new tasks are solved with no further learning. Together, these threads work towards a single agent capable, in principle, of every task its body allows.

Steven James. 2026. Drowning in Degrees of Freedom: One Agent for Every Task. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Fifth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, IJCAI-26. IJCAI, 8161–8166. https://doi.org/10.24963/ijcai.2026/906

@inproceedings{ijcai2026p906,
  title     = {Drowning in Degrees of Freedom: One Agent for Every Task},
  author    = {James, Steven},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the Thirty-Fifth International Joint Conference on
               Artificial Intelligence, {IJCAI-26}},
  publisher = {International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence Organization},
  editor    = {Diego Calvanese},
  pages     = {8161--8166},
  year      = {2026},
  month     = {8},
  note      = {Early Career Spotlight},
  doi       = {10.24963/ijcai.2026/906},
  url       = {https://doi.org/10.24963/ijcai.2026/906},
}

TY  - CPAPER
TI  - Drowning in Degrees of Freedom: One Agent for Every Task
AU  - James, Steven
T2  - Proceedings of the Thirty-Fifth International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, IJCAI-26
PB  - International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence Organization
PY  - 2026
SP  - 8161
EP  - 8166
DO  - 10.24963/ijcai.2026/906
UR  - https://doi.org/10.24963/ijcai.2026/906
ER  -