Large Language Model
I Have No Mouth, and I Must Rhyme: Uncovering Internal Phonetic Representations in LLaMA 3.2
McLaughlin, Oliver, Khurana, Arjun, Merullo, Jack
Large language models demonstrate proficiency on phonetic tasks, such as rhyming, without explicit phonetic or auditory grounding. In this work, we investigate how \verb|Llama-3.2-1B-Instruct| represents token-level phonetic information. Our results suggest that Llama uses a rich internal model of phonemes to complete phonetic tasks. We provide evidence for high-level organization of phoneme representations in its latent space. In doing so, we also identify a ``phoneme mover head" which promotes phonetic information during rhyming tasks. We visualize the output space of this head and find that, while notable differences exist, Llama learns a model of vowels similar to the standard IPA vowel chart for humans, despite receiving no direct supervision to do so.
Scaling LLM Planning: NL2FLOW for Parametric Problem Generation and Rigorous Evaluation
Robust workflow composition is critical for effective agent performance, yet progress in Large Language Model (LLM) planning and reasoning is hindered by a scarcity of scalable evaluation data. This work introduces NL2Flow, a fully automated pipeline for generating and evaluating workflow planning problems. NL2Flow generates problems parametrically in a structured intermediate representation, translating them into both natural language and formal PDDL. I evaluate several open-source, instruct-tuned LLMs on a dataset of 2296 low-difficulty problems generated by NL2Flow. Results demonstrate that the best-performing model achieved 86% success in generating valid plans and 69% in generating optimal plans (for solvable problems). Regression analysis shows that the influence of problem characteristics on plan generation is contingent on both model and prompt design. Importantly, translating natural language problems into a structured JSON representation prior to symbolic planning significantly improved success rates, suggesting a benefit from neuro-symbolic integration. These findings underscore the importance of understanding error sources within LLM reasoning as systems scale to more complex tasks. As LLM reasoning scales to increasingly complex problems, understanding the shifting bottlenecks and sources of error within these systems will be crucial.
Gemini for Home's daily briefings are getting spooky, users say
When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. Gemini for Home's daily briefings are getting spooky, users say Halloween decorations, among other things, are playing tricks on the daily smart home summaries generated by Google's Gemini, according to some users. Those are just some of the things that Google's Gemini have been reporting in its Home Briefs--the summaries it can produce of the daily goings-on detected by Nest security cameras and other connected smart home devices--and some Gemini for Home users say they're getting thoroughly creeped out by the briefings, particularly with Halloween right around the corner. "Throughout the morning, several instances of people in black cloaks or robes were observed standing in the yard," read a Home Brief screenshot posed by a Google Home user on Reddit . "The unusual presence of individuals in black cloaks or robes continued into the afternoon, with multiple sighting in the yard and approaching the driveway."
The AI bubble is heading towards a burst but it won't be the end of AI
The AI bubble is heading towards a burst but it won't be the end of AI Economists, bankers and even the boss of OpenAI are warning of a rapidly inflating AI bubble. If and when it bursts, what will happen to the technological breakthroughs of the past few years? The hundreds of billions of dollars being spent on AI seem to have inflated a global financial bubble that's now fit to burst, leaving companies and investors at risk of holding vast debt that cannot be serviced by the meagre revenue brought in by current AI services. But what does that mean for the future of the technology underpinning this financial feeding frenzy? In recent weeks, warnings of a potential AI bubble have come from the International Monetary Fund, the Bank of England, the head of the largest US bank, and even OpenAI boss Sam Altman .
Stop Trying To Make A.I. Trendy
Stop Trying To Make A.I. Trendy From vandalized subway ads to bespoke caps, A.I. startups are flooding traditional marketing spaces and getting backlash for it. Please enable javascript to get your Slate Plus feeds. If you can't access your feeds, please contact customer support. Check your phone for a link to finish setting up your feed. Please enter a valid phone number.
LLM-REVal: Can We Trust LLM Reviewers Yet?
Li, Rui, Gu, Jia-Chen, Kung, Po-Nien, Xia, Heming, liu, Junfeng, Kong, Xiangwen, Sui, Zhifang, Peng, Nanyun
The rapid advancement of large language models (LLMs) has inspired researchers to integrate them extensively into the academic workflow, potentially reshaping how research is practiced and reviewed. While previous studies highlight the potential of LLMs in supporting research and peer review, their dual roles in the academic workflow and the complex interplay between research and review bring new risks that remain largely underexplored. In this study, we focus on how the deep integration of LLMs into both peer-review and research processes may influence scholarly fairness, examining the potential risks of using LLMs as reviewers by simulation. This simulation incorporates a research agent, which generates papers and revises, alongside a review agent, which assesses the submissions. Based on the simulation results, we conduct human annotations and identify pronounced misalignment between LLM-based reviews and human judgments: (1) LLM reviewers systematically inflate scores for LLM-authored papers, assigning them markedly higher scores than human-authored ones; (2) LLM reviewers persistently underrate human-authored papers with critical statements (e.g., risk, fairness), even after multiple revisions. Our analysis reveals that these stem from two primary biases in LLM reviewers: a linguistic feature bias favoring LLM-generated writing styles, and an aversion toward critical statements. These results highlight the risks and equity concerns posed to human authors and academic research if LLMs are deployed in the peer review cycle without adequate caution. On the other hand, revisions guided by LLM reviews yield quality gains in both LLM-based and human evaluations, illustrating the potential of the LLMs-as-reviewers for early-stage researchers and enhancing low-quality papers.
MedKGEval: A Knowledge Graph-Based Multi-Turn Evaluation Framework for Open-Ended Patient Interactions with Clinical LLMs
Yu, Yuechun, Ying, Han, Jin, Haoan, Jiang, Wenjian, Xian, Dong, Wang, Binghao, Yang, Zhou, Wu, Mengyue
The reliable evaluation of large language models (LLMs) in medical applications remains an open challenge, particularly in capturing the complexity of multi-turn doctor-patient interactions that unfold in real clinical environments. Existing evaluation methods typically rely on post hoc review of full conversation transcripts, thereby neglecting the dynamic, context-sensitive nature of medical dialogues and the evolving informational needs of patients. In this work, we present MedKGEval, a novel multi-turn evaluation framework for clinical LLMs grounded in structured medical knowledge. Our approach introduces three key contributions: (1) a knowledge graph-driven patient simulation mechanism, where a dedicated control module retrieves relevant medical facts from a curated knowledge graph, thereby endowing the patient agent with human-like and realistic conversational behavior. This knowledge graph is constructed by integrating open-source resources with additional triples extracted from expert-annotated datasets; (2) an in-situ, turn-level evaluation framework, where each model response is assessed by a Judge Agent for clinical appropriateness, factual correctness, and safety as the dialogue progresses using a suite of fine-grained, task-specific metrics; (3) a comprehensive multi-turn benchmark of eight state-of-the-art LLMs, demonstrating MedKGEval's ability to identify subtle behavioral flaws and safety risks that are often overlooked by conventional evaluation pipelines. Although initially designed for Chinese and English medical applications, our framework can be readily extended to additional languages by switching the input knowledge graphs, ensuring seamless bilingual support and domain-specific applicability.
CTRL-Rec: Controlling Recommender Systems With Natural Language
Carroll, Micah, Foote, Adeline, Feng, Kevin, Williams, Marcus, Dragan, Anca, Knox, W. Bradley, Milli, Smitha
When users are dissatisfied with recommendations from a recommender system, they often lack fine-grained controls for changing them. Large language models (LLMs) offer a solution by allowing users to guide their recommendations through natural language requests (e.g., "I want to see respectful posts with a different perspective than mine"). We propose a method, CTRL-Rec, that allows for natural language control of traditional recommender systems in real-time with computational efficiency. Specifically, at training time, we use an LLM to simulate whether users would approve of items based on their language requests, and we train embedding models that approximate such simulated judgments. We then integrate these user-request-based predictions into the standard weighting of signals that traditional recommender systems optimize. At deployment time, we require only a single LLM embedding computation per user request, allowing for real-time control of recommendations. In experiments with the MovieLens dataset, our method consistently allows for fine-grained control across a diversity of requests. In a study with 19 Letterboxd users, we find that CTRL-Rec was positively received by users and significantly enhanced users' sense of control and satisfaction with recommendations compared to traditional controls.
Using Medical Algorithms for Task-Oriented Dialogue in LLM-Based Medical Interviews
Reis, Rui, Henriques, Pedro Rangel, Ferreira-Coimbra, João, Oliveira, Eva, Rodrigues, Nuno F.
We developed a task-oriented dialogue framework structured as a Directed Acyclic Graph (DAG) of medical questions. The system integrates: (1) a systematic pipeline for transforming medical algorithms and guidelines into a clinical question corpus; (2) a cold-start mechanism based on hierarchical clustering to generate efficient initial questioning without prior patient information; (3) an expand-and-prune mechanism enabling adaptive branching and backtracking based on patient responses; (4) a termination logic to ensure interviews end once sufficient information is gathered; and (5) automated synthesis of doctor-friendly structured reports aligned with clinical workflows. Human-computer interaction principles guided the design of both the patient and physician applications. Preliminary evaluation involved five physicians using standardized instruments: NASA-TLX (cognitive workload), the System Usability Scale (SUS), and the Questionnaire for User Interface Satisfaction (QUIS). The patient application achieved low workload scores (NASA-TLX = 15.6), high usability (SUS = 86), and strong satisfaction (QUIS = 8.1/9), with particularly high ratings for ease of learning and interface design. The physician application yielded moderate workload (NASA-TLX = 26) and excellent usability (SUS = 88.5), with satisfaction scores of 8.3/9. Both applications demonstrated effective integration into clinical workflows, reducing cognitive demand and supporting efficient report generation. Limitations included occasional system latency and a small, non-diverse evaluation sample.