Africa
WildGuard: Open One-Stop Moderation Tools for Safety Risks, Jailbreaks, and Refusals of LLMs
Han, Seungju, Rao, Kavel, Ettinger, Allyson, Jiang, Liwei, Lin, Bill Yuchen, Lambert, Nathan, Choi, Yejin, Dziri, Nouha
We introduce WildGuard -- an open, light-weight moderation tool for LLM safety that achieves three goals: (1) identifying malicious intent in user prompts, (2) detecting safety risks of model responses, and (3) determining model refusal rate. Together, WildGuard serves the increasing needs for automatic safety moderation and evaluation of LLM interactions, providing a one-stop tool with enhanced accuracy and broad coverage across 13 risk categories. While existing open moderation tools such as Llama-Guard2 score reasonably well in classifying straightforward model interactions, they lag far behind a prompted GPT-4, especially in identifying adversarial jailbreaks and in evaluating models' refusals, a key measure for evaluating safety behaviors in model responses. To address these challenges, we construct WildGuardMix, a large-scale and carefully balanced multi-task safety moderation dataset with 92K labeled examples that cover vanilla (direct) prompts and adversarial jailbreaks, paired with various refusal and compliance responses. WildGuardMix is a combination of WildGuardTrain, the training data of WildGuard, and WildGuardTest, a high-quality human-annotated moderation test set with 5K labeled items covering broad risk scenarios. Through extensive evaluations on WildGuardTest and ten existing public benchmarks, we show that WildGuard establishes state-of-the-art performance in open-source safety moderation across all the three tasks compared to ten strong existing open-source moderation models (e.g., up to 26.4% improvement on refusal detection). Importantly, WildGuard matches and sometimes exceeds GPT-4 performance (e.g., up to 3.9% improvement on prompt harmfulness identification). WildGuard serves as a highly effective safety moderator in an LLM interface, reducing the success rate of jailbreak attacks from 79.8% to 2.4%.
Robust Neural Information Retrieval: An Adversarial and Out-of-distribution Perspective
Liu, Yu-An, Zhang, Ruqing, Guo, Jiafeng, de Rijke, Maarten, Fan, Yixing, Cheng, Xueqi
According to the global overview report from Digital 2023, nearly 82% of Internet users between 18 and 64 have used a search engine or web portal in the past month. Specifically, IR is the process of finding and providing relevant information in response to the user query from a large collection of data. Recently, with advances in deep learning, neural IR models have witnessed significant progress [51, 53]. With the development of training methodologies such as pre-training [44, 100] and fine-tuning [73, 117, 162], neural IR models have demonstrated remarkable effectiveness in learning query-document relevance patterns. Why is robustness important in IR? In real-world deployment of neural IR models, an aspect equally essential as their effectiveness is their robustness. A good IR system must not only exhibit high effectiveness under normal conditions but also demonstrate robustness in the face of abnormal conditions. The natural openness of IR systems makes them vulnerable to intrusion, and the consequences can be severe. For example: (i) Search engines are vulnerable to black hat SEO attacks, necessitating significant efforts to curb these infringements.
Factored Conditional Filtering: Tracking States and Estimating Parameters in High-Dimensional Spaces
Chen, Dawei, Yang-Zhao, Samuel, Lloyd, John, Ng, Kee Siong
This paper introduces factored conditional filters, new filtering algorithms for simultaneously tracking states and estimating parameters in high-dimensional state spaces. The conditional nature of the algorithms is used to estimate parameters and the factored nature is used to decompose the state space into low-dimensional subspaces in such a way that filtering on these subspaces gives distributions whose product is a good approximation to the distribution on the entire state space. The conditions for successful application of the algorithms are that observations be available at the subspace level and that the transition model can be factored into local transition models that are approximately confined to the subspaces; these conditions are widely satisfied in computer science, engineering, and geophysical filtering applications. We give experimental results on tracking epidemics and estimating parameters in large contact networks that show the effectiveness of our approach.
Collision and Obstacle Avoidance for Industrial Autonomous Vehicles -- Simulation and Experimentation Based on a Cooperative Approach
Grosset, Juliette, Fougères, Alain-Jérôme, Djoko-Kouam, M, Couturier, C, Bonnin, Jean-Marie
One of the challenges of Industry 4.0, is to determine and optimize the flow of data, products and materials in manufacturing companies. To realize these challenges, many solutions have been defined such as the utilization of automated guided vehicles (AGVs). However, being guided is a handicap for these vehicles to fully meet the requirements of Industry 4.0 in terms of adaptability and flexibility: the autonomy of vehicles cannot be reduced to predetermined trajectories. Therefore, it is necessary to develop their autonomy. This will be possible by designing new generations of industrial autonomous vehicles (IAVs), in the form of intelligent and cooperative autonomous mobile robots.In the field of road transport, research is very active to make the car autonomous. Many algorithms, solving problematic traffic situations similar to those that can occur in an industrial environment, can be transposed in the industrial field and therefore for IAVs. The technologies standardized in dedicated bodies (e.g., ETSI TC ITS), such as those concerning the exchange of messages between vehicles to increase their awareness or their ability to cooperate, can also be transposed to the industrial context. The deployment of intelligent autonomous vehicle fleets raises several challenges: acceptability by employees, vehicle location, traffic fluidity, vehicle perception of changing environments (dynamic), vehicle-infrastructure cooperation, or vehicles heterogeneity. In this context, developing the autonomy of IAVs requires a relevant working method. The identification of reusable or adaptable algorithms to the various problems raised by the increase in the autonomy of IAVs is not sufficient, it is also necessary to be able to model, to simulate, to test and to experiment with the proposed solutions. Simulation is essential since it allows both to adapt and to validate the algorithms, but also to design and to prepare the experiments.To improve the autonomy of a fleet, we consider the approach relying on a collective intelligence to make the behaviours of vehicles adaptive. In this chapter, we will focus on a class of problems faced by IAVs related to collision and obstacle avoidance. Among these problems, we are particularly interested when two vehicles need to cross an intersection at the same time, known as a deadlock situation. But also, when obstacles are present in the aisles and need to be avoided by the vehicles safely.
EventChat: Implementation and user-centric evaluation of a large language model-driven conversational recommender system for exploring leisure events in an SME context
Kunstmann, Hannes, Ollier, Joseph, Persson, Joel, von Wangenheim, Florian
Large language models (LLMs) present an enormous evolution in the strategic potential of conversational recommender systems (CRS). Yet to date, research has predominantly focused upon technical frameworks to implement LLM-driven CRS, rather than end-user evaluations or strategic implications for firms, particularly from the perspective of a small to medium enterprises (SME) that makeup the bedrock of the global economy. In the current paper, we detail the design of an LLM-driven CRS in an SME setting, and its subsequent performance in the field using both objective system metrics and subjective user evaluations. While doing so, we additionally outline a short-form revised ResQue model for evaluating LLM-driven CRS, enabling replicability in a rapidly evolving field. Our results reveal good system performance from a user experience perspective (85.5% recommendation accuracy) but underscore latency, cost, and quality issues challenging business viability. Notably, with a median cost of $0.04 per interaction and a latency of 5.7s, cost-effectiveness and response time emerge as crucial areas for achieving a more user-friendly and economically viable LLM-driven CRS for SME settings. One major driver of these costs is the use of an advanced LLM as a ranker within the retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) technique. Our results additionally indicate that relying solely on approaches such as Prompt-based learning with ChatGPT as the underlying LLM makes it challenging to achieve satisfying quality in a production environment. Strategic considerations for SMEs deploying an LLM-driven CRS are outlined, particularly considering trade-offs in the current technical landscape.
CATP: Context-Aware Trajectory Prediction with Competition Symbiosis
Wu, Jiang, Liu, Dongyu, Lin, Yuchen, Wu, Yingcai
Contextual information is vital for accurate trajectory prediction. For instance, the intricate flying behavior of migratory birds hinges on their analysis of environmental cues such as wind direction and air pressure. However, the diverse and dynamic nature of contextual information renders it an arduous task for AI models to comprehend its impact on trajectories and consequently predict them accurately. To address this issue, we propose a ``manager-worker'' framework to unleash the full potential of contextual information and construct CATP model, an implementation of the framework for Context-Aware Trajectory Prediction. The framework comprises a manager model, several worker models, and a tailored training mechanism inspired by competition symbiosis in nature. Taking CATP as an example, each worker needs to compete against others for training data and develop an advantage in predicting specific moving patterns. The manager learns the workers' performance in different contexts and selects the best one in the given context to predict trajectories, enabling CATP as a whole to operate in a symbiotic manner. We conducted two comparative experiments and an ablation study to quantitatively evaluate the proposed framework and CATP model. The results showed that CATP could outperform SOTA models, and the framework could be generalized to different context-aware tasks.
Who is better at math, Jenny or Jingzhen? Uncovering Stereotypes in Large Language Models
Siddique, Zara, Turner, Liam D., Espinosa-Anke, Luis
Large language models (LLMs) have been shown to propagate and amplify harmful stereotypes, particularly those that disproportionately affect marginalised communities. To understand the effect of these stereotypes more comprehensively, we introduce GlobalBias, a dataset of 876k sentences incorporating 40 distinct gender-by-ethnicity groups alongside descriptors typically used in bias literature, which enables us to study a broad set of stereotypes from around the world. We use GlobalBias to directly probe a suite of LMs via perplexity, which we use as a proxy to determine how certain stereotypes are represented in the model's internal representations. Following this, we generate character profiles based on given names and evaluate the prevalence of stereotypes in model outputs. We find that the demographic groups associated with various stereotypes remain consistent across model likelihoods and model outputs. Furthermore, larger models consistently display higher levels of stereotypical outputs, even when explicitly instructed not to.
Towards Open-World Mobile Manipulation in Homes: Lessons from the Neurips 2023 HomeRobot Open Vocabulary Mobile Manipulation Challenge
Yenamandra, Sriram, Ramachandran, Arun, Khanna, Mukul, Yadav, Karmesh, Vakil, Jay, Melnik, Andrew, Büttner, Michael, Harz, Leon, Brown, Lyon, Nandi, Gora Chand, PS, Arjun, Yadav, Gaurav Kumar, Kala, Rahul, Haschke, Robert, Luo, Yang, Zhu, Jinxin, Han, Yansen, Lu, Bingyi, Gu, Xuan, Liu, Qinyuan, Zhao, Yaping, Ye, Qiting, Dou, Chenxiao, Chua, Yansong, Kuzma, Volodymyr, Humennyy, Vladyslav, Partsey, Ruslan, Francis, Jonathan, Chaplot, Devendra Singh, Chhablani, Gunjan, Clegg, Alexander, Gervet, Theophile, Jain, Vidhi, Ramrakhya, Ram, Szot, Andrew, Wang, Austin, Yang, Tsung-Yen, Edsinger, Aaron, Kemp, Charlie, Shah, Binit, Kira, Zsolt, Batra, Dhruv, Mottaghi, Roozbeh, Bisk, Yonatan, Paxton, Chris
In order to develop robots that can effectively serve as versatile and capable home assistants, it is crucial for them to reliably perceive and interact with a wide variety of objects across diverse environments. To this end, we proposed Open Vocabulary Mobile Manipulation as a key benchmark task for robotics: finding any object in a novel environment and placing it on any receptacle surface within that environment. We organized a NeurIPS 2023 competition featuring both simulation and real-world components to evaluate solutions to this task. Our baselines on the most challenging version of this task, using real perception in simulation, achieved only an 0.8% success rate; by the end of the competition, the best participants achieved an 10.8\% success rate, a 13x improvement. We observed that the most successful teams employed a variety of methods, yet two common threads emerged among the best solutions: enhancing error detection and recovery, and improving the integration of perception with decision-making processes. In this paper, we detail the results and methodologies used, both in simulation and real-world settings. We discuss the lessons learned and their implications for future research. Additionally, we compare performance in real and simulated environments, emphasizing the necessity for robust generalization to novel settings.
Remastering Divide and Remaster: A Cinematic Audio Source Separation Dataset with Multilingual Support
Watcharasupat, Karn N., Wu, Chih-Wei, Orife, Iroro
Cinematic audio source separation (CASS) is a relatively new subtask of audio source separation, concerned with the separation of a mixture into the dialogue, music, and effects stems. To date, only one publicly available dataset exists for CASS, that is, the Divide and Remaster (DnR) dataset, which is currently at version 2. While DnR v2 has been an incredibly useful resource for CASS, several areas of improvement have been identified, particularly through its use in the 2023 Sound Demixing Challenge. In this work, we develop version 3 of the DnR dataset, addressing issues relating to vocal content in non-dialogue stems, loudness distributions, mastering process, and linguistic diversity. In particular, the dialogue stem of DnR v3 includes speech content from more than 30 languages from multiple families including but not limited to the Germanic, Romance, Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, Malayo-Polynesian, and Bantu families. Benchmark results using the Bandit model indicated that training on multilingual data yields significant generalizability to the model even in languages with low data availability. Even in languages with high data availability, the multilingual model often performs on par or better than dedicated models trained on monolingual CASS datasets.
Flood of Techniques and Drought of Theories: Emotion Mining in Disasters
Shapouri, Soheil, Soleymani, Saber, Rezayi, Saed
Emotion mining has become a crucial tool for understanding human emotions during disasters, leveraging the extensive data generated on social media platforms. This paper aims to summarize existing research on emotion mining within disaster contexts, highlighting both significant discoveries and persistent issues. On the one hand, emotion mining techniques have achieved acceptable accuracy enabling applications such as rapid damage assessment and mental health surveillance. On the other hand, with many studies adopting data-driven approaches, several methodological issues remain. These include arbitrary emotion classification, ignoring biases inherent in data collection from social media, such as the overrepresentation of individuals from higher socioeconomic status on Twitter, and the lack of application of theoretical frameworks like cross-cultural comparisons. These problems can be summarized as a notable lack of theory-driven research and ignoring insights from social and behavioral sciences. This paper underscores the need for interdisciplinary collaboration between computer scientists and social scientists to develop more robust and theoretically grounded approaches in emotion mining. By addressing these gaps, we aim to enhance the effectiveness and reliability of emotion mining methodologies, ultimately contributing to improved disaster preparedness, response, and recovery. Keywords: emotion mining, sentiment analysis, natural disasters, psychology, technological disasters