Abstract
Evaluating autonomous agents requires examining whether they can translate goals into coherent action across extended interactions. In persistent environments, this requires coordinating interdependent actions under incomplete observations, accounting for delayed effects, and adapting as earlier decisions shape subsequent opportunities. We introduce ASIWorld, a survival sandbox that combines persistent world and character state with character-scoped observations and a programmable asynchronous interface to study sustained goal execution. Agents pursue interdependent production and exploration tasks through direct actions or agent-authored programs that continue running between model calls. The evaluation assesses task success, the attainment of development achievements, and survival costs, complemented by an analysis of execution behavior. In an exploratory study of nine agent configurations using a common harness, eight complete the production task and six complete both tasks. Analyses of execution trajectories and performance across difficulty levels reveal different preparation, combat, and recovery behaviors among configurations with similar task outcomes. Incomplete preparation is associated with stalled progression, while configurations that complete the tasks differ in survival costs and the fulfillment of additional achievement criteria. These findings illustrate the value of assessing sustained goal execution through both task outcomes and the behaviors and costs associated with achieving them.
Abstract (translated)
URL
https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.14807
