Overview
The Future of Generative AI in Software Engineering: A Vision from Industry and Academia in the European GENIUS Project
Gröpler, Robin, Klepke, Steffen, Johns, Jack, Dreschinski, Andreas, Schmid, Klaus, Dornauer, Benedikt, Tüzün, Eray, Noppen, Joost, Mousavi, Mohammad Reza, Tang, Yongjian, Viehmann, Johannes, Aslangül, Selin Şirin, Lee, Beum Seuk, Ziolkowski, Adam, Zie, Eric
Generative AI (GenAI) has recently emerged as a groundbreaking force in Software Engineering, capable of generating code, identifying bugs, recommending fixes, and supporting quality assurance. While its use in coding tasks shows considerable promise, applying GenAI across the entire Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) has not yet been fully explored. Critical uncertainties in areas such as reliability, accountability, security, and data privacy demand deeper investigation and coordinated action. The GENIUS project, comprising over 30 European industrial and academic partners, aims to address these challenges by advancing AI integration across all SDLC phases. It focuses on GenAI's potential, the development of innovative tools, and emerging research challenges, actively shaping the future of software engineering. This vision paper presents a shared perspective on the future of GenAI-driven software engineering, grounded in cross-sector dialogue as well as experiences and findings within the GENIUS consortium. The paper explores four central elements: (1) a structured overview of current challenges in GenAI adoption across the SDLC; (2) a forward-looking vision outlining key technological and methodological advances expected over the next five years; (3) anticipated shifts in the roles and required skill sets of software professionals; and (4) the contribution of GENIUS in realising this transformation through practical tools and industrial validation. This paper focuses on aligning technical innovation with business relevance. It aims to inform both research agendas and industrial strategies, providing a foundation for reliable, scalable, and industry-ready GenAI solutions for software engineering teams.
Spatio-Temporal Graph Convolutional Networks for EV Charging Demand Forecasting Using Real-World Multi-Modal Data Integration
Tupayachi, Jose, Camur, Mustafa C., Heaslip, Kevin, Li, Xueping
Transportation remains a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, highlighting the urgency of transitioning toward sustainable alternatives such as Electric Vehicles (EVs). Yet, uneven spatial distribution and irregular utilization of charging infrastructure create challenges for both power grid stability and investment planning. This study introduces Traffic-Weather Graph Convolutional Network (TW-GCN), a spatio-temporal forecasting framework that combines Graph Convolutional Networks with temporal architectures to predict EV charging demand in Tennessee, United States. We utilize real-world traffic flows, weather conditions, and proprietary data provided by one of the largest U.S.-based EV infrastructure companies to capture both spatial dependencies and temporal dynamics. Extensive experiments across varying forecasting horizons, clustering strategies, and sequence lengths reveal that mid-horizon (3-hour) forecasts achieve the best balance between responsiveness and stability, with One-dimensional convo-lutional neural networks consistently outperforming other temporal models. Regional analysis shows disparities in predictive accuracy across East, Middle, and West Tennessee, reflecting how station density, Points of Interest and local demand variability shape model capabilities. The proposed TW-GCN framework advances the integration of data-driven intelligence into EV infrastructure planning while supporting sustainable mobility transitions.
SciTopic: Enhancing Topic Discovery in Scientific Literature through Advanced LLM
Li, Pengjiang, Wang, Zaitian, Zhang, Xinhao, Zhang, Ran, Jiang, Lu, Wang, Pengfei, Zhou, Yuanchun
Topic discovery in scientific literature provides valuable insights for researchers to identify emerging trends and explore new avenues for investigation, facilitating easier scientific information retrieval. Many machine learning methods, particularly deep embedding techniques, have been applied to discover research topics. However, most existing topic discovery methods rely on word embedding to capture the semantics and lack a comprehensive understanding of scientific publications, struggling with complex, high-dimensional text relationships. Inspired by the exceptional comprehension of textual information by large language models (LLMs), we propose an advanced topic discovery method enhanced by LLMs to improve scientific topic identification, namely SciTopic. Specifically, we first build a textual encoder to capture the content from scientific publications, including metadata, title, and abstract. Next, we construct a space optimization module that integrates entropy-based sampling and triplet tasks guided by LLMs, enhancing the focus on thematic relevance and contextual intricacies between ambiguous instances. Then, we propose to fine-tune the textual encoder based on the guidance from the LLMs by optimizing the contrastive loss of the triplets, forcing the text encoder to better discriminate instances of different topics. Finally, extensive experiments conducted on three real-world datasets of scientific publications demonstrate that SciTopic outperforms the state-of-the-art (SOTA) scientific topic discovery methods, enabling researchers to gain deeper and faster insights.
PLLuM: A Family of Polish Large Language Models
Kocoń, Jan, Piasecki, Maciej, Janz, Arkadiusz, Ferdinan, Teddy, Radliński, Łukasz, Koptyra, Bartłomiej, Oleksy, Marcin, Woźniak, Stanisław, Walkowiak, Paweł, Wojtasik, Konrad, Moska, Julia, Naskręt, Tomasz, Walkowiak, Bartosz, Gniewkowski, Mateusz, Szyc, Kamil, Motyka, Dawid, Banach, Dawid, Dalasiński, Jonatan, Rudnicka, Ewa, Alberski, Bartłomiej, Walkowiak, Tomasz, Szczęsny, Aleksander, Markiewicz, Maciej, Bernaś, Tomasz, Mazur, Hubert, Żyta, Kamil, Tykierko, Mateusz, Chodak, Grzegorz, Kajdanowicz, Tomasz, Kazienko, Przemysław, Karlińska, Agnieszka, Seweryn, Karolina, Kołos, Anna, Chrabąszcz, Maciej, Lorenc, Katarzyna, Krasnodębska, Aleksandra, Wilczek, Artur, Dziewulska, Katarzyna, Betscher, Paula, Cieślińska, Zofia, Kowol, Katarzyna, Mikoś, Daria, Trzciński, Maciej, Krutul, Dawid, Kozłowski, Marek, Dadas, Sławomir, Poświata, Rafał, Perełkiewicz, Michał, Grębowiec, Małgorzata, Kazuła, Maciej, Białas, Marcin, Roszko, Roman, Roszko, Danuta, Vaičenonienė, Jurgita, Utka, Andrius, Levchuk, Paweł, Kowalski, Paweł, Prawdzic-Jankowska, Irena, Ogrodniczuk, Maciej, Borys, Monika, Bulińska, Anna, Gumienna, Wiktoria, Kieraś, Witold, Komosińska, Dorota, Krasnowska-Kieraś, Katarzyna, Kobyliński, Łukasz, Lewandowska, Martyna, Łaziński, Marek, Łątkowski, Mikołaj, Mastalerz, Dawid, Milewicz, Beata, Mykowiecka, Agnieszka Anna, Peljak-Łapińska, Angelika, Penno, Sandra, Przybysz, Zuzanna, Rudolf, Michał, Rybak, Piotr, Saputa, Karolina, Tomaszewska, Aleksandra, Wawer, Aleksander, Woliński, Marcin, Wołoszyn, Joanna, Wróblewska, Alina, Żuk, Bartosz, Żarnecki, Filip, Kaczyński, Konrad, Cichosz, Anna, Deckert, Zuzanna, Garnys, Monika, Grabarczyk, Izabela, Janowski, Wojciech, Karasińska, Sylwia, Kujawiak, Aleksandra, Misztela, Piotr, Szymańska, Maria, Walkusz, Karolina, Siek, Igor, Kwiatkowski, Jakub, Pęzik, Piotr
Large Language Models (LLMs) play a central role in modern artificial intelligence, yet their development has been primarily focused on English, resulting in limited support for other languages. We present PLLuM (Polish Large Language Model), the largest open-source family of foundation models tailored specifically for the Polish language. Developed by a consortium of major Polish research institutions, PLLuM addresses the need for high-quality, transparent, and culturally relevant language models beyond the English-centric commercial landscape. We describe the development process, including the construction of a new 140-billion-token Polish text corpus for pre-training, a 77k custom instructions dataset, and a 100k preference optimization dataset. A key component is a Responsible AI framework that incorporates strict data governance and a hybrid module for output correction and safety filtering. We detail the models' architecture, training procedures, and alignment techniques for both base and instruction-tuned variants, and demonstrate their utility in a downstream task within public administration. By releasing these models publicly, PLLuM aims to foster open research and strengthen sovereign AI technologies in Poland.
From Model to Breach: Towards Actionable LLM-Generated Vulnerabilities Reporting
Vallez, Cyril, Sternfeld, Alexander, Kucharavy, Andrei, Dolamic, Ljiljana
As the role of Large Language Models (LLM)-based coding assistants in software development becomes more critical, so does the role of the bugs they generate in the overall cybersecurity landscape. While a number of LLM code security benchmarks have been proposed alongside approaches to improve the security of generated code, it remains unclear to what extent they have impacted widely used coding LLMs. Here, we show that even the latest open-weight models are vulnerable in the earliest reported vulnerability scenarios in a realistic use setting, suggesting that the safety-functionality trade-off has until now prevented effective patching of vulnerabilities. To help address this issue, we introduce a new severity metric that reflects the risk posed by an LLM-generated vulnerability, accounting for vulnerability severity, generation chance, and the formulation of the prompt that induces vulnerable code generation - Prompt Exposure (PE). To encourage the mitigation of the most serious and prevalent vulnerabilities, we use PE to define the Model Exposure (ME) score, which indicates the severity and prevalence of vulnerabilities a model generates.
Deep Dictionary-Free Method for Identifying Linear Model of Nonlinear System with Input Delay
Valábek, Patrik, Wadinger, Marek, Kvasnica, Michal, Klaučo, Martin
Nonlinear dynamical systems with input delays pose significant challenges for prediction, estimation, and control due to their inherent complexity and the impact of delays on system behavior. Traditional linear control techniques often fail in these contexts, necessitating innovative approaches. This paper introduces a novel approach to approximate the Koopman operator using an LSTM-enhanced Deep Koopman model, enabling linear representations of nonlinear systems with time delays. By incorporating Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) layers, the proposed framework captures historical dependencies and efficiently encodes time-delayed system dynamics into a latent space. Unlike traditional extended Dynamic Mode Decomposition (eDMD) approaches that rely on predefined dictionaries, the LSTM-enhanced Deep Koopman model is dictionary-free, which mitigates the problems with the underlying dynamics being known and incorporated into the dictionary. Quantitative comparisons with extended eDMD on a simulated system demonstrate highly significant performance gains in prediction accuracy in cases where the true nonlinear dynamics are unknown and achieve comparable results to eDMD with known dynamics of a system.
Exchange Policy Optimization Algorithm for Semi-Infinite Safe Reinforcement Learning
Zhang, Jiaming, Yang, Yujie, Wang, Haoning, Zhang, Liping, Li, Shengbo Eben
Safe reinforcement learning (safe RL) aims to respect safety requirements while optimizing long-term performance. In many practical applications, however, the problem involves an infinite number of constraints, known as semi-infinite safe RL (SI-safe RL). Such constraints typically appear when safety conditions must be enforced across an entire continuous parameter space, such as ensuring adequate resource distribution at every spatial location. In this paper, we propose exchange policy optimization (EPO), an algorithmic framework that achieves optimal policy performance and deterministic bounded safety. EPO works by iteratively solving safe RL subproblems with finite constraint sets and adaptively adjusting the active set through constraint expansion and deletion. At each iteration, constraints with violations exceeding the predefined tolerance are added to refine the policy, while those with zero Lagrange multipliers are removed after the policy update. This exchange rule prevents uncontrolled growth of the working set and supports effective policy training. Our theoretical analysis demonstrates that, under mild assumptions, strategies trained via EPO achieve performance comparable to optimal solutions with global constraint violations strictly remaining within a prescribed bound.
A Criminology of Machines
While the possibility of reaching human-like Artificial Intelligence (AI) remains controversial, the likelihood that the future will be characterized by a society with a growing presence of autonomous machines is high. Autonomous AI agents are already deployed and active across several industries and digital environments and alongside human-human and human-machine interactions, machine-machine interactions are poised to become increasingly prevalent. Given these developments, I argue that criminology must begin to address the implications of this transition for crime and social control. Drawing on Actor-Network Theory and Woolgar's decades-old call for a sociology of machines -- frameworks that acquire renewed relevance with the rise of generative AI agents -- I contend that criminologists should move beyond conceiving AI solely as a tool. Instead, AI agents should be recognized as entities with agency encompassing computational, social, and legal dimensions. Building on the literature on AI safety, I thus examine the risks associated with the rise of multi-agent AI systems, proposing a dual taxonomy to characterize the channels through which interactions among AI agents may generate deviant, unlawful, or criminal outcomes. I then advance and discuss four key questions that warrant theoretical and empirical attention: (1) Can we assume that machines will simply mimic humans? (2) Will crime theories developed for humans suffice to explain deviant or criminal behaviors emerging from interactions between autonomous AI agents? (3) What types of criminal behaviors will be affected first? (4) How might this unprecedented societal shift impact policing? These questions underscore the urgent need for criminologists to theoretically and empirically engage with the implications of multi-agent AI systems for the study of crime and play a more active role in debates on AI safety and governance.
When Semantics Connect the Swarm: LLM-Driven Fuzzy Control for Cooperative Multi-Robot Underwater Coverage
Xu, Jingzehua, Zhang, Weihang, Li, Yangyang, Zhang, Hongmiaoyi, Xie, Guanwen, Tang, Jiwei, Zhang, Shuai, Li, Yi
Underwater multi-robot cooperative coverage remains challenging due to partial observability, limited communication, environmental uncertainty, and the lack of access to global localization. To address these issues, this paper presents a semantics-guided fuzzy control framework that couples Large Language Models (LLMs) with interpretable control and lightweight coordination. Raw multimodal observations are compressed by the LLM into compact, human-interpretable semantic tokens that summarize obstacles, unexplored regions, and Objects Of Interest (OOIs) under uncertain perception. A fuzzy inference system with pre-defined membership functions then maps these tokens into smooth and stable steering and gait commands, enabling reliable navigation without relying on global positioning. Then, we further coordinate multiple robots by introducing semantic communication that shares intent and local context in linguistic form, enabling agreement on who explores where while avoiding redundant revisits. Extensive simulations in unknown reef-like environments show that, under limited sensing and communication, the proposed framework achieves robust OOI-oriented navigation and cooperative coverage with improved efficiency and adaptability, narrowing the gap between semantic cognition and distributed underwater control in GPS-denied, map-free conditions.
Artificial Intelligence in Elementary STEM Education: A Systematic Review of Current Applications and Future Challenges
Memari, Majid, Ruggles, Krista
Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming elementary STEM education, yet evidence remains fragmented. This systematic review synthesizes 258 studies (2020-2025) examining AI applications across eight categories: intelligent tutoring systems (45% of studies), learning analytics (18%), automated assessment (12%), computer vision (8%), educational robotics (7%), multimodal sensing (6%), AI-enhanced extended reality (XR) (4%), and adaptive content generation. The analysis shows that most studies focus on upper elementary grades (65%) and mathematics (38%), with limited cross-disciplinary STEM integration (15%). While conversational AI demonstrates moderate effectiveness (d = 0.45-0.70 where reported), only 34% of studies include standardized effect sizes. Eight major gaps limit real-world impact: fragmented ecosystems, developmental inappropriateness, infrastructure barriers, lack of privacy frameworks, weak STEM integration, equity disparities, teacher marginalization, and narrow assessment scopes. Geographic distribution is also uneven, with 90% of studies originating from North America, East Asia, and Europe. Future directions call for interoperable architectures that support authentic STEM integration, grade-appropriate design, privacy-preserving analytics, and teacher-centered implementations that enhance rather than replace human expertise.