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From Texts to Shields: Convergence of Large Language Models and Cybersecurity

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

This report explores the convergence of large language models (LLMs) and cybersecurity, synthesizing interdisciplinary insights from network security, artificial intelligence, formal methods, and human-centered design. It examines emerging applications of LLMs in software and network security, 5G vulnerability analysis, and generative security engineering. The report highlights the role of agentic LLMs in automating complex tasks, improving operational efficiency, and enabling reasoning-driven security analytics. Socio-technical challenges associated with the deployment of LLMs -- including trust, transparency, and ethical considerations -- can be addressed through strategies such as human-in-the-loop systems, role-specific training, and proactive robustness testing. The report further outlines critical research challenges in ensuring interpretability, safety, and fairness in LLM-based systems, particularly in high-stakes domains. By integrating technical advances with organizational and societal considerations, this report presents a forward-looking research agenda for the secure and effective adoption of LLMs in cybersecurity.


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PCWorld

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Enhancing AI-Driven Education: Integrating Cognitive Frameworks, Linguistic Feedback Analysis, and Ethical Considerations for Improved Content Generation

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming education, presenting unprecedented opportunities for personalized learning and streamlined content creation. However, realizing the full potential of AI in educational settings necessitates careful consideration of the quality, cognitive depth, and ethical implications of AI-generated materials. This paper synthesizes insights from four related studies to propose a comprehensive framework for enhancing AI-driven educational tools. We integrate cognitive assessment frameworks (Bloom's Taxonomy and SOLO Taxonomy), linguistic analysis of AI-generated feedback, and ethical design principles to guide the development of effective and responsible AI tools. We outline a structured three-phase approach encompassing cognitive alignment, linguistic feedback integration, and ethical safeguards. The practical application of this framework is demonstrated through its integration into OneClickQuiz, an AI-powered Moodle plugin for quiz generation. This work contributes a comprehensive and actionable guide for educators, researchers, and developers aiming to harness AI's potential while upholding pedagogical and ethical standards in educational content generation.


Evaluating the AI-Lab Intervention: Impact on Student Perception and Use of Generative AI in Early Undergraduate Computer Science Courses

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

Generative AI (GenAI) is rapidly entering computer science education, yet its effects on student learning, skill development, and perceptions remain underexplored. Concerns about overreliance coexist with a gap in research on structured scaffolding to guide tool use in formal courses. This study examines the impact of a dedicated "AI-Lab" intervention -- emphasizing guided scaffolding and mindful engagement -- on undergraduate students in Data Structures and Algorithms, Competitive Programming, and first-year engineering courses at Purdue University. Over three semesters, we integrated AI-Lab modules into four mandatory and elective courses, yielding 831 matched pre- and post-intervention survey responses, alongside focus group discussions. Employing a mixed-methods approach, we analyzed quantitative shifts in usage patterns and attitudes as well as qualitative narratives of student experiences. While the overall frequency of GenAI usage for homework or programming projects remained largely stable, we observed large effect sizes in comfort and openness across conceptual, debugging, and homework problems. Notably, usage patterns for debugging also shifted statistically significantly, reflecting students' more mindful and deliberate approach. Focus group discussions corroborated these results, suggesting that the intervention "bridged the gap" between naive GenAI usage and more nuanced, reflective integration of AI tools into coursework, ultimately heightening students' awareness of their own skill development. These findings suggest that structured, scaffolded interventions can enable students to harness GenAI's benefits without undermining essential competencies. We offer evidence-based recommendations for educators seeking to integrate GenAI responsibly into computing curricula and identify avenues for future research on GenAI-supported pedagogy.


TRIED: Truly Innovative and Effective AI Detection Benchmark, developed by WITNESS

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

The proliferation of generative AI and deceptive synthetic media threatens the global information ecosystem, especially across the Global Majority. This report from WITNESS highlights the limitations of current AI detection tools, which often underperform in real-world scenarios due to challenges related to explainability, fairness, accessibility, and contextual relevance. In response, WITNESS introduces the Truly Innovative and Effective AI Detection (TRIED) Benchmark, a new framework for evaluating detection tools based on their real-world impact and capacity for innovation. Drawing on frontline experiences, deceptive AI cases, and global consultations, the report outlines how detection tools must evolve to become truly innovative and relevant by meeting diverse linguistic, cultural, and technological contexts. It offers practical guidance for developers, policy actors, and standards bodies to design accountable, transparent, and user-centered detection solutions, and incorporate sociotechnical considerations into future AI standards, procedures and evaluation frameworks. By adopting the TRIED Benchmark, stakeholders can drive innovation, safeguard public trust, strengthen AI literacy, and contribute to a more resilient global information credibility.


Characterizing Human Actions in the Digital Platform by Temporal Context

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

However, most human dynamic-behavior models focus only on the sequence of users' actions, abstracting the intervals between actions (i.e., inter-temporal information). Statistical time-series models, for instance, study the variation of values in the data over time; however, such models do not explicitly capture the interdependence between actions and their intervals. While some point-process models incorporate intervals, they use them to predict only a single or a few event types rather than to characterize diverse human actions enriched with temporal information from massive data (Zhao et al., 2015; Mei and Eisner, 2017). Therefore, in contrast with the sophisticated advancement of statistical behavior models, understanding human behavior from the perspective of inter-temporal context remains a difficult and often elusive goal. W e perform actions in many different contexts--from using smartphones to walking across campus. Studying these situations can help us understand what human actions are like. Even the same action can differ depending on when and where it happens. Time intervals between actions provide crucial contextual information, and much literature shows that they can reveal human cognitive states (Stanovich and W est, 2000; 1 arXiv:2206.09535v2


Revisiting Diffusion Autoencoder Training for Image Reconstruction Quality

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

Diffusion autoencoders (DAEs) are typically formulated as a noise prediction model and trained with a linear-$ฮฒ$ noise schedule that spends much of its sampling steps at high noise levels. Because high noise levels are associated with recovering large-scale image structures and low noise levels with recovering details, this configuration can result in low-quality and blurry images. However, it should be possible to improve details while spending fewer steps recovering structures because the latent code should already contain structural information. Based on this insight, we propose a new DAE training method that improves the quality of reconstructed images. We divide training into two phases. In the first phase, the DAE is trained as a vanilla autoencoder by always setting the noise level to the highest, forcing the encoder and decoder to populate the latent code with structural information. In the second phase, we incorporate a noise schedule that spends more time in the low-noise region, allowing the DAE to learn how to perfect the details. Our method results in images that have accurate high-level structures and low-level details while still preserving useful properties of the latent codes.


Fostering Self-Directed Growth with Generative AI: Toward a New Learning Analytics Framework

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

In an era increasingly shaped by decentralized knowledge ecosystems and pervasive AI technologies, fostering sustainable learner agency has become a critical educational imperative. This paper introduces a novel conceptual framework integrating Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI) and Learning Analytics (LA) to cultivate Self - Directed Growth -- a dynamic competency enabling learner s to iteratively drive their own developmental pathways across diverse contexts. Building upon critical gaps in current Self - Directed Learning (SDL) and AI - mediated educational research, the proposed Aspire to Potentials for Learners (A2PL) model reconcept ualizes the interplay of learner aspirations, complex thinking, and summative self - assessment within GAI - supported environments. Methodological implications for future intervention designs and data analytics are discussed, positioning Self - Directed Growth as a pivotal axis for designing equitable, adaptive, and sustainable learning systems in the digital era. 1. Introduction The educational realm faces two increasingly prominent challenges that threaten to reshape the landscape of learning and development . Firstly, the traditional teacher - dominated, institution - centered environment is being eclipsed by a decentralized, ever - evolving, and technologically advanced online landscape. In this new paradigm, knowledge and skills are not poised and delivered by a single expositor, but are constantly renewed, reproduced, and reiterated through sharing and co - creation, rendering existing models of education insufficient. And the overreliance on EdTech tools, as well as information search and synthesis tools, such as Generative Artificial Intelligence (GAI), among students poses a significant challenge in the contemporary educational landscape, while there is a concerning lack of research examining whether these tools genuinely foster the development of learner agency. The integration of AI into educational practices offers a transformative opportunity to enhance learning outcomes and promote equity. According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), AI has the potential to acc elerate the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4) by improving access to quality education for all learners, regardless of their socioeconomic background (UNESCO, 2019; UNESCO, 2021). As some noted, AI facilitates access to information and online education, helping to bridge the information, skill, and educational gaps faced by disadvantaged individuals who encounter barriers to traditional learning opportunities due to time constraints, financial limitations, geographic distance, or physic al challenges (Thakkar et al., 2020; Sanabria - Z et al., 2023).


A Platform for Generating Educational Activities to Teach English as a Second Language

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

We present a platform for the generation of educational activities oriented to teaching English as a foreign language. The different activities -- games and language practice exercises -- are strongly based on Natural Language Processing techniques. The platform offers the possibility of playing out-of-the-box games, generated from resources created semi-automatically and then manually curated. It can also generate games or exercises of greater complexity from texts entered by teachers, providing a stage of review and edition of the generated content before use. As a way of expanding the variety of activities in the platform, we are currently experimenting with image and text generation. In order to integrate them and improve the performance of other neural tools already integrated, we are working on migrating the platform to a more powerful server. In this paper we describe the development of our platform and its deployment for end users, discussing the challenges faced and how we overcame them, and also detail our future work plans.


Self-Healing Software Systems: Lessons from Nature, Powered by AI

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

As modern software systems grow in complexity and scale, their ability to autonomously detect, diagnose, and recover from failures becomes increasingly vital. Drawing inspiration from biological healing--where the human body detects damage, signals the brain, and activates targeted recovery--this paper explores the concept of self-healing software driven by artificial intelligence. We propose a novel framework that mimics this biological model: system observability tools serve as sensory inputs, AI models function as the cognitive core for diagnosis and repair, and healing agents apply targeted code and test modifications. By combining log analysis, static code inspection, and AI-driven generation of patches or test updates, our approach aims to reduce downtime, accelerate debugging, and enhance software resilience. We evaluate the effectiveness of this model through case studies and simulations, comparing it against traditional manual debugging and recovery workflows. This work paves the way toward intelligent, adaptive, and self-reliant software systems capable of continuous healing, akin to living organisms.