Goto

Collaborating Authors

 Aurora


Signature vs. Substance: Evaluating the Balance of Adversarial Resistance and Linguistic Quality in Watermarking Large Language Models

Guo, William, Uchendu, Adaku, Smith, Ana

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

To mitigate the potential harms of Large Language Models (LLMs)generated text, researchers have proposed watermarking, a process of embedding detectable signals within text. With watermarking, we can always accurately detect LLM-generated texts. However, recent findings suggest that these techniques often negatively affect the quality of the generated texts, and adversarial attacks can strip the watermarking signals, causing the texts to possibly evade detection. These findings have created resistance in the wide adoption of watermarking by LLM creators. Finally, to encourage adoption, we evaluate the robustness of several watermarking techniques to adversarial attacks by comparing paraphrasing and back translation (i.e., English $\to$ another language $\to$ English) attacks; and their ability to preserve quality and writing style of the unwatermarked texts by using linguistic metrics to capture quality and writing style of texts. Our results suggest that these watermarking techniques preserve semantics, deviate from the writing style of the unwatermarked texts, and are susceptible to adversarial attacks, especially for the back translation attack.


Data Cartography for Detecting Memorization Hotspots and Guiding Data Interventions in Generative Models

Patel, Laksh, Shanbhag, Neel

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

Modern generative models risk overfitting and unintentionally memorizing rare training examples, which can be extracted by adversaries or inflate benchmark performance. We propose Generative Data Cartography (GenDataCarto), a data-centric framework that assigns each pretraining sample a difficulty score (early-epoch loss) and a memorization score (frequency of ``forget events''), then partitions examples into four quadrants to guide targeted pruning and up-/down-weighting. We prove that our memorization score lower-bounds classical influence under smoothness assumptions and that down-weighting high-memorization hotspots provably decreases the generalization gap via uniform stability bounds. Empirically, GenDataCarto reduces synthetic canary extraction success by over 40\% at just 10\% data pruning, while increasing validation perplexity by less than 0.5\%. These results demonstrate that principled data interventions can dramatically mitigate leakage with minimal cost to generative performance.


Learning Pareto-Optimal Rewards from Noisy Preferences: A Framework for Multi-Objective Inverse Reinforcement Learning

Cherukuri, Kalyan, Lala, Aarav

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

As generative agents become increasingly capable, alignment of their behavior with complex human values remains a fundamental challenge. Existing approaches often simplify human intent through reduction to a scalar reward, overlooking the multi-faceted nature of human feedback. In this work, we introduce a theoretical framework for preference-based Multi-Objective Inverse Reinforcement Learning (MO-IRL), where human preferences are modeled as latent vector-valued reward functions. We formalize the problem of recovering a Pareto-optimal reward representation from noisy preference queries and establish conditions for identifying the underlying multi-objective structure. We derive tight sample complexity bounds for recovering $ε$-approximations of the Pareto front and introduce a regret formulation to quantify suboptimality in this multi-objective setting. Furthermore, we propose a provably convergent algorithm for policy optimization using preference-inferred reward cones. Our results bridge the gap between practical alignment techniques and theoretical guarantees, providing a principled foundation for learning aligned behaviors in a high-dimension and value-pluralistic environment.


Second Order State Hallucinations for Adversarial Attack Mitigation in Formation Control of Multi-Agent Systems

Patel, Laksh, Raj, Akhilesh

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

The increasing deployment of multi-agent systems (MAS) in critical infrastructures such as autonomous transportation, disaster relief, and smart cities demands robust formation control mechanisms resilient to adversarial attacks. Traditional consensus-based controllers, while effective under nominal conditions, are highly vulnerable to data manipulation, sensor spoofing, and communication failures. To address this challenge, we propose Second-Order State Hallucination (SOSH), a novel framework that detects compromised agents through distributed residual monitoring and maintains formation stability by replacing attacked states with predictive second-order approximations. Unlike existing mitigation strategies that require significant restructuring or induce long transients, SOSH offers a lightweight, decentralized correction mechanism based on second-order Taylor expansions, enabling rapid and scalable resilience. We establish rigorous Lyapunov-based stability guarantees, proving that formation errors remain exponentially bounded even under persistent attacks, provided the hallucination parameters satisfy explicit conditions. Comprehensive Monte Carlo experiments on a 5-agent complete graph formation demonstrate that SOSH outperforms established robust control schemes, including W-MSR and Huber-based consensus filters, achieving faster convergence rates, lower steady-state error, and superior transient recovery. Our results confirm that SOSH combines theoretical robustness with practical deployability, offering a promising direction for securing MAS formations against sophisticated adversarial threats.


Q-Policy: Quantum-Enhanced Policy Evaluation for Scalable Reinforcement Learning

Cherukuri, Kalyan, Lala, Aarav, Yardi, Yash

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

We propose Q-Policy, a hybrid quantum-classical reinforcement learning (RL) framework that mathematically accelerates policy evaluation and optimization by exploiting quantum computing primitives. Q-Policy encodes value functions in quantum superposition, enabling simultaneous evaluation of multiple state-action pairs via amplitude encoding and quantum parallelism. We introduce a quantum-enhanced policy iteration algorithm with provable polynomial reductions in sample complexity for the evaluation step, under standard assumptions. To demonstrate the technical feasibility and theoretical soundness of our approach, we validate Q-Policy on classical emulations of small discrete control tasks. Due to current hardware and simulation limitations, our experiments focus on showcasing proof-of-concept behavior rather than large-scale empirical evaluation. Our results support the potential of Q-Policy as a theoretical foundation for scalable RL on future quantum devices, addressing RL scalability challenges beyond classical approaches.


Quantum-Evolutionary Neural Networks for Multi-Agent Federated Learning

Lala, Aarav, Cherukuri, Kalyan

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

As artificial intelligence continues to drive innovation in complex, decentralized environments, the need for scalable, adaptive, and privacy-preserving decision-making systems has become critical. This paper introduces a novel framework combining quantum-inspired neural networks with evolutionary algorithms to optimize real-time decision-making in multi-agent systems (MAS). The proposed Quantum-Evolutionary Neural Network (QE-NN) leverages quantum computing principles -- such as quantum superposition and entanglement -- to enhance learning speed and decision accuracy, while integrating evolutionary optimization to continually refine agent behaviors in dynamic, uncertain environments. By utilizing federated learning, QE-NN ensures privacy preservation, enabling decentralized agents to collaborate without sharing sensitive data. The framework is designed to allow agents to adapt in real-time to their environments, optimizing decision-making processes for applications in areas such as autonomous systems, smart cities, and healthcare. This research represents a breakthrough in merging quantum computing, evolutionary optimization, and privacy-preserving techniques to solve complex problems in multi-agent decision-making systems, pushing the boundaries of AI in real-world, privacy-sensitive applications.


Analyzing Brain Activity During Learning Tasks with EEG and Machine Learning

Cho, Ryan, Zaman, Mobasshira, Cho, Kyu Taek, Hwang, Jaejin

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

This study aimed to analyze brain activity during various STEM activities, exploring the feasibility of classifying between different tasks. EEG brain data from twenty subjects engaged in five cognitive tasks were collected and segmented into 4-second clips. Power spectral densities of brain frequency waves were then analyzed. Testing different k-intervals with XGBoost, Random Forest, and Bagging Classifier revealed that Random Forest performed best, achieving a testing accuracy of 91.07% at an interval size of two. When utilizing all four EEG channels, cognitive flexibility was most recognizable. Task-specific classification accuracy showed the right frontal lobe excelled in mathematical processing and planning, the left frontal lobe in cognitive flexibility and mental flexibility, and the left temporoparietal lobe in connections. Notably, numerous connections between frontal and temporoparietal lobes were observed during STEM activities. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of implementing machine learning in analyzing brain activity and sheds light on the brain's mechanisms.


MIT's FutureMakers programs help kids get their minds around -- and hands on -- AI

#artificialintelligence

As she was looking for a camp last summer, Yabesra Ewnetu, who'd just finished eighth grade, found a reference to MIT's FutureMakers Create-a-thon. Ewnetu had heard that it's hard to detect bias in artificial intelligence because AI algorithms are so complex, but this didn't make sense to her. "I was like, well, we're the ones coding it, shouldn't we be able to see what it's doing and explain why?" She signed up for the six-week virtual FutureMakers program so she could delve into AI herself. FutureMakers is part of the MIT-wide Responsible AI for Social Empowerment and Education (RAISE) initiative launched earlier this year. RAISE is headquartered in the MIT Media Lab and run in collaboration with MIT Schwarzman College of Computing and MIT Open Learning.


MIT's FutureMakers programs help kids get their minds around -- and hands on -- AI

#artificialintelligence

As she was looking for a camp last summer, Yabesra Ewnetu, who'd just finished eighth grade, found a reference to MIT's FutureMakers Create-a-thon. Ewnetu had heard that it's hard to detect bias in artificial intelligence (AI) because AI algorithms are so complex, but this didn't make sense to her. "I was like, well, we're the ones coding it, shouldn't we be able to see what it's doing and explain why?" She signed up for the six-week virtual FutureMakers program so she could delve into AI herself. FutureMakers is part of the MIT-wide Responsible AI for Social Empowerment and Education (RAISE) initiative launched earlier this year. RAISE is headquartered in the MIT Media Lab and run in collaboration with MIT Schwarzman College of Computing and MIT Open Learning.


AiThority Interview With Eyal Feder-Levy, CEO and Co-Founder at Zencity

#artificialintelligence

Along with my CTO, Ido Ivri, I Co-Founded Zencity to help local governments make data-driven decisions based on their communities' priorities when creating policies and communicating them to their residents. The Zencity platform gathers and analyzes millions of anonymized, aggregated data points of community feedback from channels like social media, local broadcast media, and government customer service channels (such as 311 and call centers) and turns them into actionable insights about community trends and priorities for local government decision-makers. We analyze these millions of unstructured data points by using advanced AI and NLP algorithms to make the data structured and actionable for these organizations. The algorithms automatically classify data by relevance to the different departments in city hall and then run a sentiment analysis to determine if the data reflects positive, negative, or neutral feedback on a city-related topic. As trends emerge throughout cities or regions, our platform sends alerts to city officials so that they can take immediate action and be proactive.