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arXiv · 2601.03398

Towards Zero-Knowledge Task Planning via a Language-based Approach

Liam Merz Hoffmeister·Brian Scassellati·Daniel Rakita
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Abstract

In this work, we introduce and formalize the Zero-Knowledge Task Planning (ZKTP) problem, i.e., formulating a sequence of actions to achieve some goal without task-specific knowledge. Additionally, we present a first investigation and approach for ZKTP that leverages a large language model (LLM) to decompose natural language instructions into subtasks and generate behavior trees (BTs) for execution. If errors arise during task execution, the approach also uses an LLM to adjust the BTs on-the-fly in a refinement loop. Experimental validation in the AI2-THOR simulator demonstrate our approach's effectiveness in improving overall task performance compared to alternative approaches that leverage task-specific knowledge. Our work demonstrates the potential of LLMs to effectively address several aspects of the ZKTP problem, providing a robust framework for automated behavior generation with no task-specific setup.

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Liam Merz Hoffmeister, Brian Scassellati, Daniel Rakita. 2026-01-06. Towards Zero-Knowledge Task Planning via a Language-based Approach. https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.03398

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