# theory-of-mind Projects at AI Tinkerers

> Canonical HTML: https://aitinkerers.org/technologies/theory-of-mind
> Markdown URL: https://aitinkerers.org/technologies/theory-of-mind.md
> Technology record last updated: 2026-03-03T18:57:06Z
> Generated: 2026-09-20T17:51:48Z

Theory-of-Mind (ToM) AI enables systems to model and predict the mental states (beliefs, intentions, desires) of other agents: The core capability for advanced social intelligence.

This technology grants AI the capacity to infer and reason about the internal cognitive states of humans or other machines. It moves beyond simple pattern recognition to attribute complex mental states: beliefs, desires, and intentions. Key applications include autonomous vehicles anticipating a pedestrian’s next move, empathetic virtual assistants detecting user frustration, and collaborative robots (like those in DARPA's ASIST program) integrating effectively into human teams. Successfully implementing ToM is the critical next step for achieving truly natural and intuitive human-machine interaction.

- Official technology site: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7202334/
- Public AI Tinkerers demos and talks: 2
- Result page: 1 of 1

## Recent Public Talks and Demos

### [YouSim](https://seattle.aitinkerers.org/talks/rsvp_hYVHhU5uSoU)

You've hard of worldsim and websim, now there's YouSim. Leveraging the inherent theory-of-mind capabilities to create an experience where an agent tries to model you the user.

- Event context: AI Tinkerers Seattle - June 2024 — 2024-06-07 — Seattle
- Public talk page: https://seattle.aitinkerers.org/talks/rsvp_hYVHhU5uSoU

### [Honcho - A Dialectic API to Personalize AI Agents to Users using Theory of Mind](https://seattle.aitinkerers.org/talks/rsvp_-NsjdNcildg)

Honcho is a framework for building user-centric AI applications to personalize to the users preferences and style out of the box.. Machine learning has focused on the task for too long, but in order to build truly transformative tools we need to meet users where they are. Tools should work for the user not have the user put in work to get a good result. By taking advantages of the reasoning abilities of LLMs and marrying with concepts from cognitive science on how users learn (Theory of Mind) and connect with each other we can dramatically improve an agent's ability to return useful and relevant responses.

- Event context: AI Tinkerers Seattle - March 2024 Meetup — 2024-03-15 — Seattle
- Public talk page: https://seattle.aitinkerers.org/talks/rsvp_-NsjdNcildg

## Related Technologies

- [Prompt Engineering](https://aitinkerers.org/technologies/prompt-engineering) ([Markdown](https://aitinkerers.org/technologies/prompt-engineering.md)) — 28 public demos
- [Dialectic API](https://aitinkerers.org/technologies/dialectic-api) ([Markdown](https://aitinkerers.org/technologies/dialectic-api.md)) — 1 public demo
- [Honcho](https://aitinkerers.org/technologies/honcho) ([Markdown](https://aitinkerers.org/technologies/honcho.md)) — 5 public demos
- [LLMs](https://aitinkerers.org/technologies/llms) ([Markdown](https://aitinkerers.org/technologies/llms.md)) — 83 public demos
- [WebSim](https://aitinkerers.org/technologies/websim) ([Markdown](https://aitinkerers.org/technologies/websim.md)) — 2 public demos
- [worldsim](https://aitinkerers.org/technologies/worldsim) ([Markdown](https://aitinkerers.org/technologies/worldsim.md)) — 1 public demo
- [YouSim](https://aitinkerers.org/technologies/yousim) ([Markdown](https://aitinkerers.org/technologies/yousim.md)) — 1 public demo