# Self-Evolving Just-In-Time Memory for Proactive Embodied Safety

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.16247 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.16247/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Embodied and 3D vision-language models, one of 16 directions in Multimodal LLMs / vision-language models.
- Builds on 31 of its 38 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 26 Jun 2026.

## Placed in

- Multimodal LLMs / vision-language models / [Embodied and 3D vision-language models](https://mlsanity.com/mllm/embodied-and-3d-vision-language-models/)
- Synthetic data and self-improvement for LLMs / [Safety of self-evolving systems](https://mlsanity.com/synth/safety-of-self-evolving-systems/)
- LLM safety and security / [Prompt injection and agent security](https://mlsanity.com/safety/prompt-injection-and-agent-security/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 31)

- [Qwen3 Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.09388/) (2025)
- [GPT-4o System Card](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.21276/) (2024)
- [RT-2: Vision-Language-Action Models Transfer Web Knowledge to Robotic Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.15818/) (2023)
- [Do As I Can, Not As I Say: Grounding Language in Robotic Affordances](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.01691/) (2022)
- [Voyager: An Open-Ended Embodied Agent with Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.16291/) (2023)
- [PaLM-E: An Embodied Multimodal Language Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.03378/) (2023)
- [Qwen3 Embedding: Advancing Text Embedding and Reranking Through Foundation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.05176/) (2025)
- [ProgPrompt: Generating Situated Robot Task Plans using Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.11302/) (2022)
- [Memory in the Age of AI Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.13564/) (2025)
- [AgentSpec: Customizable Runtime Enforcement for Safe and Reliable LLM Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.18666/) (2025)
- [EmbodiedBench: Comprehensive Benchmarking Multi-modal Large Language Models for Vision-Driven Embodied Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.09560/) (2025)
- [Hi Robot: Open-Ended Instruction Following with Hierarchical Vision-Language-Action Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.19417/) (2025)
- [Instruct2Act: Mapping Multi-modality Instructions to Robotic Actions with Large Language Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.11176/) (2023)
- [SafeAgentBench: A Benchmark for Safe Task Planning of Embodied LLM Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.13178/) (2024)
- [3D-Mem: 3D Scene Memory for Embodied Exploration and Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.17735/) (2024)
- [Plug in the Safety Chip: Enforcing Constraints for LLM-driven Robot Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.09919/) (2023)
- [Multimodal Situational Safety](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.06172/) (2024)
- [A Survey on Robotics with Foundation Models: toward Embodied AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.02385/) (2024)
- [IS-Bench: Evaluating Interactive Safety of VLM-Driven Embodied Agents in Daily Household Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.16402/) (2025)
- [KARMA: Augmenting Embodied AI Agents with Long-and-short Term Memory Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.14908/) (2024)
- [AGENTSAFE: Benchmarking the Safety of Embodied Agents on Hazardous Instructions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.14697/) (2025)
- [Open-Ended Instructable Embodied Agents with Memory-Augmented Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.15127/) (2023)
- [Towards Robust and Secure Embodied AI: A Survey on Vulnerabilities and Attacks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.13175/) (2025)
- [EARBench: Towards Evaluating Physical Risk Awareness for Task Planning of Foundation Model-based Embodied AI Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.04449/) (2024)
- [FreezeVLA: Action-Freezing Attacks against Vision-Language-Action Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.19870/) (2025)
- [Subtle Risks, Critical Failures: A Framework for Diagnosing Physical Safety of LLMs for Embodied Decision Making](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.19933/) (2025)
- [Modeling Dynamic Environments with Scene Graph Memory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.17537/) (2023)
- [Easier Said Than Done: Unpacking Intent-Behavior Gap in Jailbreaking LLM-Based Robots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.16633/) (2024)
- [RoboMemory: A Brain-inspired Multi-memory Agentic Framework for Interactive Environmental Learning in Physical Embodied Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.01415/) (2025)
- [RoboSafe: Safeguarding Embodied Agents via Executable Safety Logic](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.21220/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [HygieneRoboBench: Benchmarking Hygiene-Aware Planning for Household Robots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.08642/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

While Vision-Language Models (VLMs) have empowered embodied agents to execute complex household tasks, they struggle to proactively handle dynamically emerging hazards during closed-loop interactions. Existing safety approaches often rely on runtime guardrails to block unsafe actions or induce excessive caution, which severely stalls task progress instead of actively resolving the underlying risks. To break this safety-progress trade-off, we introduce the Self-Evolving Just-In-Time Memory framework, which reframes embodied safety from progress-stalling guardrails to proactive hazard mitigation. The framework consists of a Risk-Sufficient Topological Belief Graph (RSG) for persistent safety-relevant state tracking under partial observability, an Agency-Grounded Factual Memory for precise hazard anticipation, and an Experience Memory that injects procedural Meta-Skills to guide executable, progress-preserving mitigation. Furthermore, we propose an automated Test-Verify-Write loop, allowing agents to continually refine their mitigation Meta-Skills from execution traces at test time. Experiments on IS-Bench demonstrate that our framework substantially boosts the Safe-Success rate across multiple VLM backbones (e.g., +30.3% on Qwen3-VL-8B), enabling agents to proactively mitigate hazards without stalling task progress. Code is available at https://github.com/DyMessi/JIT-Memory.
