How are shaking boxes of Christmas presents and the development of AI related?

Our brains intuitively analyze other people’s actions without us even thinking about it. Pragmatic actions are goal-oriented, for example, they help us determine where a person is going or what they want to accomplish. In contrast, epistemic actions are related to the desire to learn something about the world.

Researchers have confirmed that we are able to understand what epistemic goals another person is pursuing simply by observing their actions. For example, in the experiment, participants were shown videos of a person shaking a box containing a Christmas present to determine the number or shape of items inside. Almost all participants were able to understand the reason why he was doing this.