AI News Today

arXiv:2606.28421v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Text-to-image (T2I) diffusion models typically require substantial computational resources and cloud infrastructure, posing significant challenges for edge deployment in terms of latency, cost, and user privacy. We present JuZhou 1.0, an ultra-lightweight T2I foundation model designed for fully offline, on-device execution. JuZhou 1.0 achieves its efficiency through four key designs: (1) a compact image-generation backbone consisting of a 0.385B-pa

arXiv:2606.28516v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We present CLEAR-MoE, a four-phase post-training pipeline that converts a frozen pretrained Vision Transformer (ViT) into a sparse Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) model without updating backbone weights. The pipeline (i) scores feed-forward network (FFN) layers by sparsity, clusterability, and output sensitivity; (ii) decomposes selected layers into a shared low-rank SVD basis and per-cluster residual experts using k-means clustering; (iii) trains lightwe

arXiv:2606.28537v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Multiview mammography relies on paired craniocaudal (CC) and mediolateral oblique (MLO) views to provide complementary projections of a 3D breast volume, enabling precise anomaly localization. However, acquiring high-quality, balanced datasets remains challenging for deep learning applications. We propose a novel method to synthesize multiview mammograms by leveraging the inherent geometric relationship between CC and MLO views. To enforce an impli

arXiv:2606.28551v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Building performant Vision-Language Models (VLMs) requires carefully curating large-scale training datasets, yet the community lacks systematic benchmarks for evaluating such curation strategies. We introduce DataComp for VLMs (DCVLM), a benchmark for controlled data-centric experiments to improve VLM training. As part of DCVLM, we collect 160 datasets spanning four data types -- image-caption pairs, multimodal interleaved documents, text-only, and

arXiv:2606.28413v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: A mesh of sovereign agents has no center: no shared clock, no shared model, and no coordinator to gather data or retrain. Its competence rests on each agent folding the projections its peers emit into a single internal state, online, from observations that arrive at irregular, unscheduled times, on a substrate whose weights it cannot retrain. Any one of these constraints is tractable on its own; folding optimally under all three at once is not. We

arXiv:2606.28441v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Online latent state estimation constitutes a fundamental challenge within the artificial intelligence field, serving as a foundational tool for diverse applications, including sequential decision making, anomaly and change-point detection. In this paper, a novel online distributed sensing framework, where agents collaborate and exchange information to perform latent state estimation, is presented. The proposed estimator combines available partial d

arXiv:2606.28460v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Data-driven modeling in real-world regression tasks often suffers from limited training samples, high collection costs, and noisy observations. Inspired by the impact of data augmentation in vision and language, we propose a novel Counterfactual Residual Data Augmentation (CRDA) technique for tabular regression. Our key insight is that once a regressor has modeled the systematic component of the data, the remaining noise can be viewed as an invaria

arXiv:2606.28464v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: In the optimization of neural networks, gradient dynamics are influenced by critical points that arise from the model's architecture. These critical points occur where the Jacobian of the model's parametrization is rank-deficient, and are the most pronounced singularities studied in Singular Learning Theory. We investigate such points in deep fully-connected networks with monomial activations via tools from polynomial algebra such as Mason's Theore

arXiv:2606.28467v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Appliance-level energy monitoring in office buildings produces noisy alerts that non-expert facility managers struggle to use. This paper proposes an end-to-end agentic pipeline that combines deep time-series forecasting, variational anomaly detection, and LLM-based reasoning to generate prioritized, actionable maintenance recommendations. The system tracks seven office appliances using a hybrid Singular Spectrum Analysis (SSA) and Long Short-Term

arXiv:2606.28519v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Training operator-learning models for large-scale problems governed by partial differential equations (PDEs) is challenging due to the curse of dimensionality, memory constraints, and limited training data. These challenges arise in many scientific and engineering applications, including subsurface flow, climate modeling, and geological carbon storage (GCS). In this work, we propose a scalable operator-learning framework based on the Karhunen-Loeve

arXiv:2606.28525v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Fine-tuning on harmless data can partially undo behaviors acquired earlier in training. Safety can erode under benign post-alignment updates, unlearned capabilities can re-emerge, latent traits can transfer through apparently unrelated supervision, and related post-alignment fragility appears in other generative settings. We argue these phenomena are usefully viewed through a common training-history lens. Our hypothesis is geometric: large early tr

arXiv:2606.28546v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Recent advances in AI-driven weather and climate modeling have improved forecast skill while reducing computational cost. However, existing data-driven approaches are limited in their ability to model coupled Earth system dynamics, which is required for extending predictability beyond the ~2-week horizon. To address this, we introduce NIVA, a multimodal foundation model designed to learn unified representations across Earth system components. While

arXiv:2606.28572v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: The axiom of choice has divided the foundations of mathematics for over a century, but the distinction between classical and constructive proofs has remained a philosophical and methodological one. We use Lean 4's kernel-level tracking of axiom dependence to show that the axiom of choice has a measurable geometric correlate in proof space that obeys a one-parameter mixture law and has operational consequences for neural theorem provers. To do this,

arXiv:2606.28573v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Modern machine learning models are trained by optimizing high-dimensional non-convex empirical risk functions. Such cost functions can have a multitude of local optima and yet, gradient-based optimization appears to converge to near-global optima. Within a simple supervised learning setting, we develop a precise picture of which parts of the empirical risk landscape are accessible by polynomial-time algorithms. We are given i.i.d. pairs $\{(\boldsy

arXiv:2606.28615v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly deployed in high-stakes domains, where free-text explanations such as chain-of-thought and post-hoc rationales are used to justify model outputs. Yet it remains unclear whether these explanations are sufficient, i.e., if they contain enough information to explain the model's output-generating process. We generalize classical sufficiency from feature attributions to arbitrary explanations and prove that

arXiv:2606.28616v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: In stochastic linear bandits, the canonical Upper Confidence Bound (UCB) algorithm admits a simple frequentist regret analysis but can be computationally demanding, while Thompson Sampling (TS) is computationally attractive yet typically harder to analyze due to its non-optimistic nature. We propose Absolute Thompson Sampling (ATS), a simple modification of TS that ensures optimism in expectation by replacing the signed exploration noise with its a

arXiv:2606.28662v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: The flatness hypothesis suggests that flatness of the loss landscape, as measured by the eigenvalues of the loss Hessian, correlates with better neural network generalization. While various algorithms reduce these eigenvalues, most focus on procedural design, leaving it unclear how data distributions and NN parameters structurally determine directions toward flat minima. Characterizing these directions analytically is generally intractable. To over

arXiv:2606.28669v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: To address parameter misspecification and sudden structural environmental changes in conventional stochastic differential game (SDG) frameworks, this paper introduces a distributional control approach that characterizes optimal strategies as probability distributions over actions, conditioned on the continuous state, the discrete regime state, and parameters. This forms a reinforcement learning framework for entropy-regularized zero-sum stochastic

arXiv:2606.28671v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Stackelberg differential games (SDGs) provide a powerful framework for hierarchical decision-making in stochastic and continuous-time environments, yet their solution remains computationally challenging due to the complexity of traditional dynamic programming and Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman-Isaacs (HJBI) methods, especially in high-dimensional systems. This paper proposes an entropy-regularized reinforcement learning (ERRL) approach for linear-quadrati

arXiv:2606.28674v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Generative models in finance face the dual challenge of producing realistic data while satisfying strict regulatory and economic objectives, a requirement that standard tabular diffusion models cannot provide. To address this difficulty, we introduce Constrained Tabular Diffusion for Finance (CTDF), a novel integration of sampling-time feasibility operations with mixed-type tabular diffusion in financial applications. By incorporating a training-fr

arXiv:2606.28751v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We propose a path-space formulation of prediction in AI world models. Rather than sequences of one-step conditional distributions, we argue that a world model implicitly defines a probability measure over future trajectories. In the local regime where latent dynamics admit an effective Markovian description, this path measure takes the Onsager-Machlup form. Within this framework, prediction (most probable trajectory), planning (constrained optimiza

arXiv:2606.28764v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Hierarchical decision-making frameworks are pivotal for addressing complex control tasks, enabling agents to decompose intricate problems into manageable subgoals. Despite their promise, existing hierarchical policies face critical limitations: (i) reinforcement learning (RL)-based methods struggle to guarantee strict constraint satisfaction, and (ii) optimal control (OC)-based approaches often rely on myopic and computationally prohibitive formula

arXiv:2606.28769v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Emotional body motion expressions are an essential element of non-verbal communication. Effectively conveying these expressions through technology is of utmost importance, for example, with virtual reality avatars and in social robotics. Recent advances in generative models have opened new opportunities for advancing research on emotional body motion learning. However, generating accurate emotional expression representations is challenging, given t

arXiv:2606.28795v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Machine Learning (ML) algorithms, such as k-Nearest Neighbours (kNN) or random forest, eschew the ideal of true data models in favour of predictive performance. However, minimising the MSE or F-score cannot lead to unbiasedness directly, which is important in many situations such as official statistics. We study the conditions of algorithmic ML, other than the existence and knowledge of true data models, which lead to unbiased prediction or classif

arXiv:2606.28457v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Natural language processing (NLP) applications need large and rich amount of linguistic knowledge. Furthermore, electronic language sources such as dictionaries, encyclopedia, and corpora became available. So, automatic methods are emerged to extract lexical information from those sources to overcome the knowledge acquisition bottleneck. We presented a method to automatically extract lexical information from a machine-readable version of the Arabic

arXiv:2606.28524v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Recent work suggests that Large Language Models (LLMs) are sensitive to the belief states of agents described by text, as measured by the false belief task (FBT), yet persistent concerns of construct validity remain. We adopt a **developmental perspective**, tracing the pattern of mental state reasoning behavior -- and likely **preconditions** for this behavior -- across multiple training stages in the Olmo2 and Pythia language model suites. We fin

arXiv:2606.28526v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: The clinical and communication skills of medical students are commonly assessed through Objective Structured Clinical Examinations (OSCEs), which consist of brief scenario-driven simulations of doctor-patient interactions. However, training is often limited by the low availability of human standardized patients, motivating the development of realistic virtual patients (VPs). To address this gap, we introduce a French OSCE dialogue dataset comprisin

arXiv:2606.28538v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We investigate domain adaptation of modern BERT models in the legal domain. We further pre-train ModernBERT on all US court opinions using the masked language modeling objective. Although ModernBERT has been trained on roughly 500x more data than original BERT, we still find that this model benefits from further pre-training and domain adaptation in the legal domain: we report significant improvements compared to vanilla ModernBERT on all datasets

arXiv:2606.28562v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: On-policy distillation (OPD) has a property absent in offline distillation and RL: teacher supervision quality depends on student competence. Incoherent rollouts yield noisy gradients; already-mastered tokens yield redundant ones. This creates waste at three scales (tokens, training phases, and prompts) yet existing methods supervise uniformly. We introduce SEAD, which uses entropy as a unified probe of this competence-dependent degradation at thre

arXiv:2606.28574v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: When a large language model (LLM) codes a construct in text as a human annotator would, that agreement makes the LLM a reliable coder. Yet reliability leaves construct validity untouched. The instrument may be theory-naive, reaching the code through a correlate that meets none of the demands the construct's theory makes, and no current method tells that apart from genuine measurement. We propose grain calibration as a method that closes the gap. It

arXiv:2606.28667v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Sign languages are compositional systems where meaning arises by combining sublexical phonological parameters, such as handshape, location, and movement. While deep learning models for Sign Language Recognition (SLR) have achieved increased performance on translation benchmarks, it remains unclear whether these models distinguish abstract phonological features or merely rely on low-level statistical correlations. This work evaluates the phonologica

arXiv:2606.28708v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Accurately explaining hidden patterns in multi-aspect data has typically been done by leveraging labels and/or accompanying auxiliary metadata. However, labels and auxiliary data may be inaccurate (e.g. nonstandard, inconsistent), insufficient (e.g. static tabular metadata for time-dependent recordings), or unavailable. % We propose \fullmethod (\method), which leverages the knowledge of large language models (LLMs) to explain the hidden patterns i

arXiv:2606.28715v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: While AI development and evaluation for Southeast Asia (SEA) has grown rapidly, agent capabilities in regional languages are still poorly understood despite its importance to sovereign AI. To fill this gap, we introduce SEATauBench, the first agent-focused evaluation framework for SEA sovereign AI. SeaTau adapts TauBench to five languages -- Mandarin, Vietnamese, Thai, Indonesian, and Filipino -- and evaluates agents across progressively localized

arXiv:2606.28737v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We introduce 5ting, our system for the SemEval2026 Task 8 (MTRAGEval), which evaluates multi-turn Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) systems. Multi turn RAG involves context drift, under specification, and hallucination risk. Our system combines BGE-M3 dense retrieval with FAISS indexing, dual-query merged retrieval, and LLM based reranking, followed by role separated generation constrained to retrieved evidence. The retriever achieved nDCG@5 = 0

arXiv:2606.28772v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Hate speech annotation pipelines routinely collapse annotator disagreement into majority vote labels before training. We show that this aggregation is not neutral: 42.6% of all annotator disagreement in HateXplain concentrates specifically at the hate/offensive boundary, a pattern consistent with annotators applying different thresholds for where hate begins (chi-squared = 135.199, df = 2, p < 0.0001). Both a hard-label BERT model (Model A) and a s

arXiv:2606.28796v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Government documents in India are predominantly issued in regional languages such as Marathi, creating substantial accessibility barriers for non-native readers, interstate administrative bodies, and policy analysts. Although recent advances in neural machine translation have improved sentence-level translation quality, existing systems largely neglect document structure, formatting integrity, and domain-specific terminology, thereby limiting their

arXiv:2606.28823v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Recent large language models (LLMs) achieve strong performance on entity matching without requiring task-specific training data. However, applying these models to large sets of candidate pairs remains slow and costly. In contrast, entity matchers using traditional machine learning methods or small language models (SLMs), such as RoBERTa, offer much faster inference but require task-specific training data. This paper investigates whether the need to

arXiv:2606.28843v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Fine-tuning a large language model is a ubiquitous method for enhancing its capability on a specific downstream task. However, prior work has shown that this increase in capability comes with a cost: it can increase a model's tendency to respond to unsafe adversarial prompts, even when fine-tuning with non-adversarial data. We present the first comprehensive empirical study of this phenomenon in multilingual settings by fine-tuning Llama-3.2, Qwen3

arXiv:2606.28867v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Creative Commons licenses dominate African NLP corpus releases, but their compatibility rules are rarely applied. CC-BY-SA and CC-BY-NC cannot be combined in a single published dataset; a NoDerivs clause silently prohibits tokenisation and annotation. This paper audits the license provenance of over twenty corpus families used in African NLP, constructs a six-tier compatibility matrix, and applies it to three case-study languages: Kituba/Munukutuba

arXiv:2606.28898v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Knowledge updating in pre-trained Large Language Models (LLMs) remains an important challenge. While continual training provides a potential avenue for knowledge updating, it continues to present substantial technical difficulties. Furthermore, LLMs often struggle with accurately answering questions about specific factual information, such as news articles - a capability limitation widely recognized in the research community. This paper proposes PA