From Control to Foresight: Simulation as a New Paradigm for Human-Agent Collaboration

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: He, Gaole, Lim, Brian Y.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author He, Gaole
Lim, Brian Y.
author_facet He, Gaole
Lim, Brian Y.
contents Large Language Models (LLMs) are increasingly used to power autonomous agents for complex, multi-step tasks. However, human-agent interaction remains pointwise and reactive: users approve or correct individual actions to mitigate immediate risks, without visibility into subsequent consequences. This forces users to mentally simulate long-term effects, a cognitively demanding and often inaccurate process. Users have control over individual steps but lack the foresight to make informed decisions. We argue that effective collaboration requires foresight, not just control. We propose simulation-in-the-loop, an interaction paradigm that enables users and agents to explore simulated future trajectories before committing to decisions. Simulation transforms intervention from reactive guesswork into informed exploration, while helping users discover latent constraints and preferences along the way. This perspective paper characterizes the limitations of current paradigms, introduces a conceptual framework for simulation-based collaboration, and illustrates its potential through concrete human-agent collaboration scenarios.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_11677
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle From Control to Foresight: Simulation as a New Paradigm for Human-Agent Collaboration
He, Gaole
Lim, Brian Y.
Human-Computer Interaction
Artificial Intelligence
Computation and Language
Large Language Models (LLMs) are increasingly used to power autonomous agents for complex, multi-step tasks. However, human-agent interaction remains pointwise and reactive: users approve or correct individual actions to mitigate immediate risks, without visibility into subsequent consequences. This forces users to mentally simulate long-term effects, a cognitively demanding and often inaccurate process. Users have control over individual steps but lack the foresight to make informed decisions. We argue that effective collaboration requires foresight, not just control. We propose simulation-in-the-loop, an interaction paradigm that enables users and agents to explore simulated future trajectories before committing to decisions. Simulation transforms intervention from reactive guesswork into informed exploration, while helping users discover latent constraints and preferences along the way. This perspective paper characterizes the limitations of current paradigms, introduces a conceptual framework for simulation-based collaboration, and illustrates its potential through concrete human-agent collaboration scenarios.
title From Control to Foresight: Simulation as a New Paradigm for Human-Agent Collaboration
topic Human-Computer Interaction
Artificial Intelligence
Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.11677