Edge-cloud collaborative computing (ECCC) has emerged as a pivotal paradigm for addressing the computational demands of modern intelligent applications, integrating cloud resources with edge devices to enable efficient, low-latency processing. Recent advancements in AI, particularly deep learning and large language models (LLMs), have dramatically enhanced the capabilities of these distributed systems, yet introduce significant challenges in model deployment and resource management. In this survey, we comprehensive examine the intersection of distributed intelligence and model optimization within edge-cloud environments, providing a structured tutorial on fundamental architectures, enabling technologies, and emerging applications. Additionally, we systematically analyze model optimization approaches, including compression, adaptation, and neural architecture search, alongside AI-driven resource management strategies that balance performance, energy efficiency, and latency requirements. We further explore critical aspects of privacy protection and security enhancement within ECCC systems and examines practical deployments through diverse applications, spanning autonomous driving, healthcare, and industrial automation. Performance analysis and benchmarking techniques are also thoroughly explored to establish evaluation standards for these complex systems. Furthermore, the review identifies critical research directions including LLMs deployment, 6G integration, neuromorphic computing, and quantum computing, offering a roadmap for addressing persistent challenges in heterogeneity management, real-time processing, and scalability. By bridging theoretical advancements and practical deployments, this survey offers researchers and practitioners a holistic perspective on leveraging AI to optimize distributed computing environments, fostering innovation in next-generation intelligent systems.

Configuration optimization remains a critical bottleneck in machine learning, requiring coordinated tuning across model architecture, training strategy, feature engineering, and hy-perparameters. Traditional approaches treat these dimensions independently and lack interpretability, while recent automated methods struggle with dynamic adaptability and semantic reasoning about optimization decisions. We introduce Language-Guided Tuning (LGT), a novel framework that employs multi-agent Large Language Models to intelligently optimize configurations through natural language reasoning. We apply textual gradients - qualitative feedback signals that complement numerical optimization by providing semantic understanding of training dynamics and configuration interdependencies. LGT coordinates three specialized agents: an Advisor that proposes configuration changes, an Evaluator that assesses progress, and an Optimizer that refines the decision-making process, creating a self-improving feedback loop. Through comprehensive evaluation on six diverse datasets, LGT demonstrates substantial improvements over traditional optimization methods, achieving performance gains while maintaining high interpretability.

Interactive digital maps have revolutionized how people travel and learn about the world; however, they rely on preexisting structured data in GIS databases (e.g., road networks, POI indices), limiting their ability to address geo-visual questions related to what the world looks like. W e introduce our vision for Geo-Visual Agents--multimodal AI agents capable of understanding and responding to nuanced visual-spatial inquiries about the world by analyzing large-scale repositories of geospatial images, including streetscapes (e.g., Google Street View), place-based photos (e.g., TripAdvisor, Y elp), and aerial imagery (e.g., satellite photos) combined with traditional GIS data sources. W e define our vision, describe sensing and interaction approaches, provide three exemplars, and enumerate key challenges and opportunities for future work.

We present NiceWebRL, a research tool that enables researchers to use machine reinforcement learning (RL) environments for online human subject experiments. NiceWebRL is a Python library that allows any Jax-based environment to be transformed into an online interface, supporting both single-agent and multi-agent environments. As such, NiceWebRL enables AI researchers to compare their algorithms to human performance, cognitive scientists to test ML algorithms as theories for human cognition, and multi-agent researchers to develop algorithms for human-AI collaboration. We showcase NiceWebRL with 3 case studies that demonstrate its potential to help develop Human-like AI, Human-compatible AI, and Human-assistive AI. In the first case study (Human-like AI), NiceWebRL enables the development of a novel RL model of cognition. Here, NiceWebRL facilitates testing this model against human participants in both a grid world and Craftax, a 2D Minecraft domain. In our second case study (Human-compatible AI), NiceWebRL enables the development of a novel multi-agent RL algorithm that can generalize to human partners in the Overcooked domain. Finally, in our third case study (Human-assistive AI), we show how NiceWebRL can allow researchers to study how an LLM can assist humans on complex tasks in XLand-Minigrid, an environment with millions of hierarchical tasks. The library is available at https://github.com/KempnerInstitute/nicewebrl.

Embodied navigation (EN) advances traditional navigation by enabling robots to perform complex egocentric tasks through sensing, social, and motion intelligence. In contrast to classic methodologies that rely on explicit localization and pre-defined maps, EN leverages egocentric perception and human-like interaction strategies. This survey introduces a comprehensive EN formulation structured into five stages: Transition, Observation, Fusion, Reward-policy construction, and Action (TOFRA). The TOFRA framework serves to synthesize the current state of the art, provide a critical review of relevant platforms and evaluation metrics, and identify critical open research challenges. A list of studies is available at https://github.com/Franky-X/Awesome-Embodied-Navigation.

Purposeful behavior is a hallmark of natural and artificial intelligence. Its acquisition is often believed to rely on world models, comprising both descriptive (what is) and prescriptive (what is desirable) aspects that identify and evaluate state of affairs in the world, respectively. Canonical computational accounts of purposeful behavior, such as reinforcement learning, posit distinct components of a world model comprising a state representation (descriptive aspect) and a reward function (prescriptive aspect). However, an alternative possibility, which has not yet been computationally formulated, is that these two aspects instead co-emerge interdependently from an agent's goal. Here, we describe a computational framework of goal-directed state representation in cognitive agents, in which the descriptive and prescriptive aspects of a world model co-emerge from agent-environment interaction sequences, or experiences. Drawing on Buddhist epistemology, we introduce a construct of goal-directed, or telic, states, defined as classes of goal-equivalent experience distributions. Telic states provide a parsimonious account of goal-directed learning in terms of the statistical divergence between behavioral policies and desirable experience features. We review empirical and theoretical literature supporting this novel perspective and discuss its potential to provide a unified account of behavioral, phenomenological and neural dimensions of purposeful behaviors across diverse substrates.

Classical methods for AMR depend on heuristics or expensive error estimators, hindering their use for complex simulations.

In this interview series, we're meeting some of the AAAI/SIGAI Doctoral Consortium participants to find out more about their research. In this latest interview, Haimin Hu tells us about his research on the algorithmic foundations of human-centered autonomy and his plans for future projects, and gives some advice for PhD students looking to take the next step in their career. My PhD research, conducted under the supervision of Professor Jaime Fernández Fisac in the Princeton Safe Robotics Lab, focuses on the algorithmic foundations of human-centered autonomy. By integrating dynamic game theory with machine learning and safety-critical control, my work aims to ensure autonomous systems, from self-driving vehicles to drones and quadrupedal robots, are performant, verifiable, and trustworthy when deployed in human-populated space. The core principle of my PhD research is to plan robots' motion in the joint space of both physical and information states, actively ensuring safety as they navigate uncertain, changing environments and interact with humans.

Developing better RL algorithms to address these challenges requires a means of empirically bench-marking and comparing the performance of different algorithms in real-world settings.