mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Natural Language as Policies: Reasoning for Coordinate-Level Embodied Control with LLMs

arXiv 2403.13801 ↗First posted 20 Mar 2024cs.RO cs.AI cs.CLcited by 4

On the map: LLM reasoning → Spatial and embodied reasoning

Abstract (arXiv)

We demonstrate experimental results with LLMs that address robotics task planning problems. Recently, LLMs have been applied in robotics task planning, particularly using a code generation approach that converts complex high-level instructions into mid-level policy codes. In contrast, our approach acquires text descriptions of the task and scene objects, then formulates task planning through natural language reasoning, and outputs coordinate level control commands, thus reducing the necessity for intermediate representation code as policies with pre-defined APIs. Our approach is evaluated on a multi-modal prompt simulation benchmark, demonstrating that our prompt engineering experiments with natural language reasoning significantly enhance success rates compared to its absence. Furthermore, our approach illustrates the potential for natural language descriptions to transfer robotics skills from known tasks to previously unseen tasks. The project website: https://natural-language-as-policies.github.io/

Key facts. Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Spatial and embodied reasoning, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning. Builds on 34 of its 39 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 20 Mar 2024.

Builds on

34 of 39 references.

Closest ancestors · 4

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2023Statler: State-Maintaining Language Models for Embodied Reasoning30 Jun
  2. 2023Demo2Code: From Summarizing Demonstrations to Synthesizing Code via Extended Chain-of-Thought26 May
  3. 2023EmbodiedGPT: Vision-Language Pre-Training via Embodied Chain of Thought24 May
  4. 2022Inner Monologue: Embodied Reasoning through Planning with Language Models12 Jul

Other references · 30

  1. 2021Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervisioncited by 33,456
  2. 2023GPT-4 Technical Reportcited by 18,132
  3. 2023LLaMA: Open and Efficient Foundation Language Modelscited by 13,958
  4. 2022Chain-of-Thought Prompting Elicits Reasoning in Large Language Modelscited by 12,302
  5. 2023Grounding DINO: Marrying DINO with Grounded Pre-Training for Open-Set Object Detectioncited by 3,274
  6. 2023Voyager: An Open-Ended Embodied Agent with Large Language Modelscited by 2,081
  7. 2022Code as Policies: Language Model Programs for Embodied Controlcited by 1,172
  8. 2022Language Models as Zero-Shot Planners: Extracting Actionable Knowledge for Embodied Agentscited by 1,029
  9. 2021Multimodal Few-Shot Learning with Frozen Language Modelscited by 657
  10. 2022ProgPrompt: Generating Situated Robot Task Plans using Large Language Modelscited by 598
  11. 2022BC-Z: Zero-Shot Task Generalization with Robotic Imitation Learningcited by 517
  12. 2022Socratic Models: Composing Zero-Shot Multimodal Reasoning with Languagecited by 513
18 more
  1. 2022VIMA: General Robot Manipulation with Multimodal Promptscited by 403
  2. 2023Scaling Open-Vocabulary Object Detectioncited by 335
  3. 2023Text2Motion: From Natural Language Instructions to Feasible Planscited by 223
  4. 2023Chain of Code: Reasoning with a Language Model-Augmented Code Emulatorcited by 120
  5. 2023Instruct2Act: Mapping Multi-modality Instructions to Robotic Actions with Large Language Modelcited by 115
  6. 2024RAP: Retrieval-Augmented Planning with Contextual Memory for Multimodal LLM Agentscited by 80
  7. 2023Language Models as Zero-Shot Trajectory Generatorscited by 59
  8. 2024RoboCodeX: Multimodal Code Generation for Robotic Behavior Synthesiscited by 55
  9. 2023Prompt a Robot to Walk with Large Language Modelscited by 44
  10. 2023SayTap: Language to Quadrupedal Locomotioncited by 40
  11. 2023Towards Solving Fuzzy Tasks with Human Feedback: A Retrospective of the MineRL BASALT 2022 Competitioncited by 15
  12. 2023Contrastive Language, Action, and State Pre-training for Robot Learningcited by 15
  13. 2023Mastering Robot Manipulation with Multimodal Prompts through Pretraining and Multi-task Fine-tuningcited by 15
  14. 2023UniTeam: Open Vocabulary Mobile Manipulation Challengecited by 15
  15. 2024Zero-shot Imitation Policy via Search in Demonstration Datasetcited by 13
  16. 2022Behavioral Cloning via Search in Video PreTraining Latent Spacecited by 9
  17. 2022Planning with RL and episodic-memory behavioral priorscited by 8
  18. 2023Shape complexity estimation using VAEcited by 4

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Cited by year

Citing papers per year: 2024: 3; 2025: 1.

4 papers.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2025Vision-Language-Policy Model for Dynamic Robot Task Planning
  2. 2025A Systematic Study of Large Language Models for Task and Motion Planning With PDDLStream
  3. 2025Constrained Natural Language Action Planning for Resilient Embodied Systems
  4. 2024Large Language Models for Robotics: Opportunities, Challenges, and Perspectives
  5. 2023SMART-LLM: Smart Multi-Agent Robot Task Planning using Large Language Models
  6. 2026Hierarchical Prompting with Dual LLM Modules for Robotic Task and Motion Planning ↗
  7. 2026From Language to Action: Can LLM-Based Agents Be Used for Embodied Robot Cognition?
  8. 2026From Local Corrections to Generalized Skills: Improving Neuro-Symbolic Policies with MEMO