- Brendon Boldt, David R. Mortensen. 2022. Recommendations for Systematic Research on Emergent Language. Abstract: Emergent language is unique among ﬁelds within the discipline of machine learning for its open-endedness, not obviously presenting well-deﬁned problems to be solved. As a result, the current research in the ﬁeld has largely been exploratory: focusing on establishing new problems, techniques, and phenomena. Yet after these problems have been established, subsequent progress requires research which can measurably demonstrate how it improves on prior approaches. This type of research is what we call systematic research ; in this paper, we illustrate this mode of research speciﬁcally for emergent language. We ﬁrst identify the overarching goals of emergent language research, categoriz-ing them as either science or engineering. Using this distinction, we present core methodological elements of science and engineering, analyze their role in current emergent language research, and recommend how to apply these elements.
