Scalable Environments Drive Generalizable Agents

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Zhang, Jiayi, Kong, Fanqi, Zhang, Guibin, Song, Maojia, Yu, Zhaoyang, Ruan, Jianhao, Xiang, Jinyu, Liu, Bang, Wu, Chenglin, Luo, Yuyu
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Zhang, Jiayi
Kong, Fanqi
Zhang, Guibin
Song, Maojia
Yu, Zhaoyang
Ruan, Jianhao
Xiang, Jinyu
Liu, Bang
Wu, Chenglin
Luo, Yuyu
author_facet Zhang, Jiayi
Kong, Fanqi
Zhang, Guibin
Song, Maojia
Yu, Zhaoyang
Ruan, Jianhao
Xiang, Jinyu
Liu, Bang
Wu, Chenglin
Luo, Yuyu
contents Generalizable agents should adapt to diverse tasks and unseen environments beyond their training distribution. This position paper argues that such generalization requires environment scaling: expanding the distribution of executable rule-sets that agents interact with, rather than only increasing trajectories or tasks within fixed benchmarks. Current scaling practices largely focus on collecting more experience or broader task sets under fixed interaction rules, leaving agents brittle when underlying interfaces, dynamics, observations, or feedback signals change. The core challenge is therefore a world-level distribution shift: agents need systematic exposure to environments with meaningfully different executable rule-sets. To clarify this challenge, we propose a unified taxonomy that separates trajectory scaling, task scaling, and environment scaling by their primary deliverables and by what changes in the executable rule-set. Building on this taxonomy, we synthesize construction paradigms for scalable environments, contrasting programmatic generators that prioritize controllability and verifiability with generative world models that offer broader coverage and open-endedness. We further outline how environment scaling can be coupled with stateful learning mechanisms, emphasizing learned update rules for cross-environment adaptation. We conclude by discussing alternative perspectives and argue that scalable environments provide the essential substrate for measurable and controllable progress toward robust general agents.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_18181
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Scalable Environments Drive Generalizable Agents
Zhang, Jiayi
Kong, Fanqi
Zhang, Guibin
Song, Maojia
Yu, Zhaoyang
Ruan, Jianhao
Xiang, Jinyu
Liu, Bang
Wu, Chenglin
Luo, Yuyu
Artificial Intelligence
Computation and Language
Generalizable agents should adapt to diverse tasks and unseen environments beyond their training distribution. This position paper argues that such generalization requires environment scaling: expanding the distribution of executable rule-sets that agents interact with, rather than only increasing trajectories or tasks within fixed benchmarks. Current scaling practices largely focus on collecting more experience or broader task sets under fixed interaction rules, leaving agents brittle when underlying interfaces, dynamics, observations, or feedback signals change. The core challenge is therefore a world-level distribution shift: agents need systematic exposure to environments with meaningfully different executable rule-sets. To clarify this challenge, we propose a unified taxonomy that separates trajectory scaling, task scaling, and environment scaling by their primary deliverables and by what changes in the executable rule-set. Building on this taxonomy, we synthesize construction paradigms for scalable environments, contrasting programmatic generators that prioritize controllability and verifiability with generative world models that offer broader coverage and open-endedness. We further outline how environment scaling can be coupled with stateful learning mechanisms, emphasizing learned update rules for cross-environment adaptation. We conclude by discussing alternative perspectives and argue that scalable environments provide the essential substrate for measurable and controllable progress toward robust general agents.
title Scalable Environments Drive Generalizable Agents
topic Artificial Intelligence
Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.18181