Exploring the Link Between Bayesian Inference and Embodied Intelligence: Toward Open Physical-World Embodied AI Systems

Abstract

Embodied intelligence posits that cognitive capabilities fundamentally emerge from - and are shaped by - an agent's real-time sensorimotor interactions with its environment. Such adaptive behavior inherently requires continuous inference under uncertainty. Bayesian statistics offers a principled probabilistic framework to address this challenge by representing knowledge as probability distributions and updating beliefs in response to new evidence. The core computational processes underlying embodied intelligence - including perception, action selection, learning, and even higher-level cognition - can be effectively understood and modeled as forms of Bayesian inference. Despite the deep conceptual connection between Bayesian statistics and embodied intelligence, Bayesian principles have not been widely or explicitly applied in today's embodied intelligence systems. In this work, we examine both Bayesian and contemporary embodied intelligence approaches through two fundamental lenses: search and learning - the two central themes in modern AI, as highlighted in Rich Sutton's influential essay "The Bitter Lesson". This analysis sheds light on why Bayesian inference has not played a central role in the development of modern embodied intelligence. At the same time, it reveals that current embodied intelligence systems remain largely confined to closed-physical-world environments, and highlights the potential for Bayesian methods to play a key role in extending these systems toward truly open physical-world embodied intelligence.