Mind Reading at Work: Cooperation without common ground

As Stefan Kopp and Nicole Kramer say in their recent paper[Frontiers in Psychology 12 (2021) 597], despite some very impressive demonstrations over the last decade or so, we still don't know how how to make a computer have a half decent conversation with a human. They argue that the capabilities required to do this include incremental joint co-construction and mentalizing. Although agreeing whole heartedly with their statement of the problem, this paper argues for a different approach to the solution based on the "new" AI of situated action.