{"ID":2856200,"CreatedAt":"2026-06-01T04:54:23.091178241Z","UpdatedAt":"2026-06-01T04:54:23.091178241Z","DeletedAt":null,"paper_url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.11144","arxiv_id":"2510.11144","title":"$How^{2}$: How to learn from procedural How-to questions","abstract":"An agent facing a planning problem can use answers to how-to questions to reduce uncertainty and fill knowledge gaps, helping it solve both current and future tasks. However, their open ended nature, where valid answers to \"How do I X?\" range from executable actions to high-level descriptions of X's sub-goals, makes them challenging for AI agents to ask, and for AI experts to answer, in ways that support efficient planning. We introduce $How^{2}$, a memory agent framework that enables agents to ask how-to questions, store the answers, and reuse them for lifelong learning in interactive environments. We evaluate our approach in Plancraft, a Minecraft crafting environment, where agents must complete an assembly task by manipulating inventory items. Using teacher models that answer at varying levels of abstraction, from executable action sequences to high-level subgoal descriptions, we show that lifelong learning agents benefit most from answers that are abstracted and decoupled from the current state. $How^{2}$ offers a way for LLM-based agents to improve their planning capabilities over time by asking questions in interactive environments.","short_abstract":"An agent facing a planning problem can use answers to how-to questions to reduce uncertainty and fill knowledge gaps, helping it solve both current and future tasks. However, their open ended nature, where valid answers to \"How do I X?\" range from executable actions to high-level descriptions of X's sub-goals, makes th...","url_abs":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.11144","url_pdf":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2510.11144v2","authors":"[\"Gautier Dagan\",\"Frank Keller\",\"Alex Lascarides\"]","published":"2025-10-13T08:35:20Z","proceeding":"cs.AI","tasks":"[\"cs.AI\",\"cs.CL\"]","methods":"[\"Large Language Model\"]","has_code":false}