  In the recent shift towards human-centric AI, the need for machines to
accurately use natural language has become increasingly important. While a
common approach to achieve this is to train large language models, this method
presents a form of learning misalignment where the model may not capture the
underlying structure and reasoning humans employ in using natural language,
potentially leading to unexpected or unreliable behavior. Emergent
communication (Emecom) is a field of research that has seen a growing number of
publications in recent years, aiming to develop artificial agents capable of
using natural language in a way that goes beyond simple discriminative tasks
and can effectively communicate and learn new concepts. In this review, we
present Emecom under two aspects. Firstly, we delineate all the common
proprieties we find across the literature and how they relate to human
interactions. Secondly, we identify two subcategories and highlight their
characteristics and open challenges. We encourage researchers to work together
by demonstrating that different methods can be viewed as diverse solutions to a
common problem and emphasize the importance of including diverse perspectives
and expertise in the field. We believe a deeper understanding of human
communication is crucial to developing machines that can accurately use natural
language in human-machine interactions.
