The Importance of Symbolic Reasoning in World Modeling
Understanding how the world works is key to creating AI agents that can adapt to complex situations. While neural network-based models, such as Dreamer, offer flexibility, they require massive amounts of data to learn effectively, far more than humans typically do. On the other hand, newer methods use program synthesis with large language models to generate code-based world models. These are more data-efficient and can generalize well from limited input. However, their use has been mostly limited to simple domains, such as text or grid worlds, as scaling to complex, dynamic environments remains a challenge due to the difficulty of generating large, comprehensive programs.
Limitations of Existing Programmatic World Models
Recent research has investigated the use of programs to represent world models, often leveraging large language models to synthesize Python transition functions. Approaches like WorldCoder and CodeWorldModels generate a single, large program, which limits their scalability in complex environments and their ability to handle uncertainty and partial observability. Some studies focus on high-level symbolic models for robotic planning by integrating visual input with abstract reasoning. Earlier efforts employed restricted domain-specific languages tailored to specific benchmarks or utilized conceptually related structures, such as factor graphs in Schema Networks. Theoretical models, such as AIXI, also explore world modeling using Turing machines and history-based representations.
Introducing PoE-World: Modular and Probabilistic World Models
Researchers from Cornell, Cambridge, The Alan Turing Institute, and Dalhousie University introduce PoE-World, an approach to learning symbolic world models by combining many small, LLM-synthesized programs, each capturing a specific rule of the environment. Instead of creating one large program, PoE-World builds a modular, probabilistic structure that can learn from brief demonstrations. This setup supports generalization to new situations, allowing agents to plan effectively, even in complex games like Pong and Montezuma’s Revenge. While it doesn’t model raw pixel data, it learns from symbolic object observations and emphasizes accurate modeling over exploration for efficient decision-making.
Architecture and Learning Mechanism of PoE-World
PoE-World models the environment as a combination of small, interpretable Python programs called programmatic experts, each responsible for a specific rule or behavior. These experts are weighted and combined to predict future states based on past observations and actions. By treating features as conditionally independent and learning from the full history, the model remains modular and scalable. Hard constraints refine predictions, and experts are updated or pruned as new data is collected. The model supports planning and reinforcement learning by simulating likely future outcomes, enabling efficient decision-making. Programs are synthesized using LLMs and interpreted probabilistically, with expert weights optimized via gradient descent.
Empirical Evaluation on Atari Games
The study evaluates their agent, PoE-World + Planner, on Atari’s Pong and Montezuma’s Revenge, including harder, modified versions of these games. Using minimal demonstration data, their method outperforms baselines such as PPO, ReAct, and WorldCoder, particularly in low-data settings. PoE-World demonstrates strong generalization by accurately modeling game dynamics, even in altered environments without new demonstrations. It’s also the only method to consistently score positively in Montezuma’s Revenge. Pre-training policies in PoE-World’s simulated environment accelerate real-world learning. Unlike WorldCoder’s limited and sometimes inaccurate models, PoE-World produces more detailed, constraint-aware representations, leading to better planning and more realistic in-game behavior.
Conclusion: Symbolic, Modular Programs for Scalable AI Planning
In conclusion, understanding how the world works is crucial to building adaptive AI agents; however, traditional deep learning models require large datasets and struggle to update flexibly with limited input. Inspired by how humans and symbolic systems recombine knowledge, the study proposes PoE-World. This method utilizes large language models to synthesize modular, programmatic “experts” that represent different parts of the world. These experts combine compositionally to form a symbolic, interpretable world model that supports strong generalization from minimal data. Tested on Atari games like Pong and Montezuma’s Revenge, this approach demonstrates efficient planning and performance, even in unfamiliar scenarios. Code and demos are publicly available.
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