From Proposal to Execution: Modeling Interaction Semantics in Shared Autonomy

arXiv:2610.25496v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: In many human-AI systems, candidate actions are not executed directly but are first evaluated by another decision-making entity under a potentially different objective or decision model. Standard decision-theoretic frameworks do not require this interaction to be represented explicitly, as they define transition dynamics directly over state-action pairs, allowing evaluation to be absorbed within the transition model. We introduce a semantics-aware decision framework in which a candidate action is proposed, evaluated under an interaction context, and then resolved into an executed outcome. We formalize this through a joint action language and an interpretation function that maps each joint action and context to a semantic outcome. Transition and reward dynamics are induced through these semantic outcomes, thereby introducing an explicit representational layer for \textit{interaction semantics}. Semantic outcomes provide explicit units for organizing interaction principles, which can be instantiated through application-specific evaluation mechanisms and reused across distinct interaction instances. This provides a structured interface for specifying context-dependent evaluation separately from the resulting execution dynamics, without requiring changes to the underlying planning algorithm. We instantiate the framework in shared human-AI autonomy, capturing interaction patterns such as advisory and authorization, and illustrating how interaction context influences decision making. The resulting formulation remains compatible with standard Markov decision process (MDP) planning.