Agents
ASTRA: Autonomous Spatial-Temporal Red-teaming for AI Software Assistants
Xu, Xiangzhe, Shen, Guangyu, Su, Zian, Cheng, Siyuan, Guo, Hanxi, Yan, Lu, Chen, Xuan, Jiang, Jiasheng, Jin, Xiaolong, Wang, Chengpeng, Zhang, Zhuo, Zhang, Xiangyu
AI coding assistants like GitHub Copilot are rapidly transforming software development, but their safety remains deeply uncertain-especially in high-stakes domains like cybersecurity. Current red-teaming tools often rely on fixed benchmarks or unrealistic prompts, missing many real-world vulnerabilities. We present ASTRA, an automated agent system designed to systematically uncover safety flaws in AI-driven code generation and security guidance systems. ASTRA works in three stages: (1) it builds structured domain-specific knowledge graphs that model complex software tasks and known weaknesses; (2) it performs online vulnerability exploration of each target model by adaptively probing both its input space, i.e., the spatial exploration, and its reasoning processes, i.e., the temporal exploration, guided by the knowledge graphs; and (3) it generates high-quality violation-inducing cases to improve model alignment. Unlike prior methods, ASTRA focuses on realistic inputs-requests that developers might actually ask-and uses both offline abstraction guided domain modeling and online domain knowledge graph adaptation to surface corner-case vulnerabilities. Across two major evaluation domains, ASTRA finds 11-66% more issues than existing techniques and produces test cases that lead to 17% more effective alignment training, showing its practical value for building safer AI systems.
Mechanism Design for Facility Location using Predictions
We study mechanisms for the facility location problem augmented with predictions of the optimal facility location. We demonstrate that an egalitarian viewpoint which considers both the maximum distance of any agent from the facility and the minimum utility of any agent provides important new insights compared to a viewpoint that just considers the maximum distance. As in previous studies, we consider performance in terms of consistency (worst case when predictions are accurate) and robustness (worst case irrespective of the accuracy of predictions). By considering how mechanisms with predictions can perform poorly, we design new mechanisms that are more robust. Indeed, by adjusting parameters, we demonstrate how to trade robustness for consistency. We go beyond the single facility problem by designing novel strategy proof mechanisms for locating two facilities with bounded consistency and robustness that use two predictions for where to locate the two facilities.
When Agents Break Down in Multiagent Path Finding
Fioravantes, Foivos, Knop, Duลกan, Melissinos, Nikolaos, Opler, Michal
In Multiagent Path Finding (MAPF), the goal is to compute efficient, collision-free paths for multiple agents navigating a network from their sources to targets, minimizing the schedule's makespan-the total time until all agents reach their destinations. We introduce a new variant that formally models scenarios where some agents may experience delays due to malfunctions, posing significant challenges for maintaining optimal schedules. Recomputing an entirely new schedule from scratch after each malfunction is often computationally infeasible. To address this, we propose a framework for dynamic schedule adaptation that does not rely on full replanning. Instead, we develop protocols enabling agents to locally coordinate and adjust their paths on the fly. We prove that following our primary communication protocol, the increase in makespan after k malfunctions is bounded by k additional turns, effectively limiting the impact of malfunctions on overall efficiency. Moreover, recognizing that agents may have limited computational capabilities, we also present a secondary protocol that shifts the necessary computations onto the network's nodes, ensuring robustness without requiring enhanced agent processing power. Our results demonstrate that these protocols provide a practical, scalable approach to resilient multiagent navigation in the face of agent failures.
LLM-Prior: A Framework for Knowledge-Driven Prior Elicitation and Aggregation
The specification of prior distributions is fundamental in Bayesian inference, yet it remains a significant bottleneck. The prior elicitation process is often a manual, subjective, and unscalable task. We propose a novel framework which leverages Large Language Models (LLMs) to automate and scale this process. We introduce \texttt{LLMPrior}, a principled operator that translates rich, unstructured contexts such as natural language descriptions, data or figures into valid, tractable probability distributions. We formalize this operator by architecturally coupling an LLM with an explicit, tractable generative model, such as a Gaussian Mixture Model (forming a LLM based Mixture Density Network), ensuring the resulting prior satisfies essential mathematical properties. We further extend this framework to multi-agent systems where Logarithmic Opinion Pooling is employed to aggregate prior distributions induced by decentralized knowledge. We present the federated prior aggregation algorithm, \texttt{Fed-LLMPrior}, for aggregating distributed, context-dependent priors in a manner robust to agent heterogeneity. This work provides the foundation for a new class of tools that can potentially lower the barrier to entry for sophisticated Bayesian modeling.
WINELL: Wikipedia Never-Ending Updating with LLM Agents
Reddy, Revanth Gangi, Dixit, Tanay, Qin, Jiaxin, Qian, Cheng, Lee, Daniel, Han, Jiawei, Small, Kevin, Fan, Xing, Sarikaya, Ruhi, Ji, Heng
Wikipedia, a vast and continuously consulted knowledge base, faces significant challenges in maintaining up-to-date content due to its reliance on manual human editors. Inspired by the vision of continuous knowledge acquisition in NELL and fueled by advances in LLM-based agents, this paper introduces WiNELL, an agentic framework for continuously updating Wikipedia articles. Our approach employs a multi-agent framework to aggregate online information, select new and important knowledge for a target entity in Wikipedia, and then generate precise edit suggestions for human review. Our fine-grained editing models, trained on Wikipedia's extensive history of human edits, enable incorporating updates in a manner consistent with human editing behavior. Our editor models outperform both open-source instruction-following baselines and closed-source LLMs (e.g., GPT-4o) in key information coverage and editing efficiency. End-to-end evaluation on high-activity Wikipedia pages demonstrates WiNELL's ability to identify and suggest timely factual updates. This opens up a promising research direction in LLM agents for automatically updating knowledge bases in a never-ending fashion.
From MAS to MARS: Coordination Failures and Reasoning Trade-offs in Hierarchical Multi-Agent Robotic Systems within a Healthcare Scenario
Bai, Yuanchen, Ding, Zijian, Wen, Shaoyue, Chang, Xiang, Taylor, Angelique
Multi-agent robotic systems (MARS) build upon multi-agent systems by integrating physical and task-related constraints, increasing the complexity of action execution and agent coordination. However, despite the availability of advanced multi-agent frameworks, their real-world deployment on robots remains limited, hindering the advancement of MARS research in practice. To bridge this gap, we conducted two studies to investigate performance trade-offs of hierarchical multi-agent frameworks in a simulated real-world multi-robot healthcare scenario. In Study 1, using CrewAI, we iteratively refine the system's knowledge base, to systematically identify and categorize coordination failures (e.g., tool access violations, lack of timely handling of failure reports) not resolvable by providing contextual knowledge alone. In Study 2, using AutoGen, we evaluate a redesigned bidirectional communication structure and further measure the trade-offs between reasoning and non-reasoning models operating within the same robotic team setting. Drawing from our empirical findings, we emphasize the tension between autonomy and stability and the importance of edge-case testing to improve system reliability and safety for future real-world deployment. Supplementary materials, including codes, task agent setup, trace outputs, and annotated examples of coordination failures and reasoning behaviors, are available at: https://byc-sophie.github.io/mas-to-mars/.
Beyond Brainstorming: What Drives High-Quality Scientific Ideas? Lessons from Multi-Agent Collaboration
Chen, Nuo, Tong, Yicheng, Wu, Jiaying, Duong, Minh Duc, Wang, Qian, Zou, Qingyun, Hooi, Bryan, He, Bingsheng
While AI agents show potential in scientific ideation, most existing frameworks rely on single-agent refinement, limiting creativity due to bounded knowledge and perspective. Inspired by real-world research dynamics, this paper investigates whether structured multi-agent discussions can surpass solitary ideation. We propose a cooperative multi-agent framework for generating research proposals and systematically compare configurations including group size, leader-led versus leaderless structures, and team compositions varying in interdisciplinarity and seniority. To assess idea quality, we employ a comprehensive protocol with agent-based scoring and human review across dimensions such as novelty, strategic vision, and integration depth. Our results show that multi-agent discussions substantially outperform solitary baselines. A designated leader acts as a catalyst, transforming discussion into more integrated and visionary proposals. Notably, we find that cognitive diversity is a primary driver of quality, yet expertise is a non-negotiable prerequisite, as teams lacking a foundation of senior knowledge fail to surpass even a single competent agent. These findings offer actionable insights for designing collaborative AI ideation systems and shed light on how team structure influences creative outcomes.
Behaviorally Adaptive Multi-Robot Hazard Localization in Failure-Prone, Communication-Denied Environments
Srivastava, Alkesh K., Suresh, Aamodh, Nieto-Granda, Carlos
We address the challenge of multi-robot autonomous hazard mapping in high-risk, failure-prone, communication-denied environments such as post-disaster zones, underground mines, caves, and planetary surfaces. In these missions, robots must explore and map hazards while minimizing the risk of failure due to environmental threats or hardware limitations. We introduce a behavior-adaptive, information-theoretic planning framework for multi-robot teams grounded in the concept of Behavioral Entropy (BE), that generalizes Shannon entropy (SE) to capture diverse human-like uncertainty evaluations. Building on this formulation, we propose the Behavior-Adaptive Path Planning (BAPP) framework, which modulates information gathering strategies via a tunable risk-sensitivity parameter, and present two planning algorithms: BAPP-TID for intelligent triggering of high-fidelity robots, and BAPP-SIG for safe deployment under high risk. We provide theoretical insights on the informativeness of the proposed BAPP framework and validate its effectiveness through both single-robot and multi-robot simulations. Our results show that the BAPP stack consistently outperforms Shannon-based and random strategies: BAPP-TID accelerates entropy reduction, while BAPP-SIG improves robot survivability with minimal loss in information gain. In multi-agent deployments, BAPP scales effectively through spatial partitioning, mobile base relocation, and role-aware heterogeneity. These findings underscore the value of behavior-adaptive planning for robust, risk-sensitive exploration in complex, failure-prone environments.
OS Agents: A Survey on MLLM-based Agents for General Computing Devices Use
Hu, Xueyu, Xiong, Tao, Yi, Biao, Wei, Zishu, Xiao, Ruixuan, Chen, Yurun, Ye, Jiasheng, Tao, Meiling, Zhou, Xiangxin, Zhao, Ziyu, Li, Yuhuai, Xu, Shengze, Wang, Shenzhi, Xu, Xinchen, Qiao, Shuofei, Wang, Zhaokai, Kuang, Kun, Zeng, Tieyong, Wang, Liang, Li, Jiwei, Jiang, Yuchen Eleanor, Zhou, Wangchunshu, Wang, Guoyin, Yin, Keting, Zhao, Zhou, Yang, Hongxia, Wu, Fan, Zhang, Shengyu, Wu, Fei
The dream to create AI assistants as capable and versatile as the fictional J.A.R.V.I.S from Iron Man has long captivated imaginations. With the evolution of (multi-modal) large language models ((M)LLMs), this dream is closer to reality, as (M)LLM-based Agents using computing devices (e.g., computers and mobile phones) by operating within the environments and interfaces (e.g., Graphical User Interface (GUI)) provided by operating systems (OS) to automate tasks have significantly advanced. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of these advanced agents, designated as OS Agents. We begin by elucidating the fundamentals of OS Agents, exploring their key components including the environment, observation space, and action space, and outlining essential capabilities such as understanding, planning, and grounding. We then examine methodologies for constructing OS Agents, focusing on domain-specific foundation models and agent frameworks. A detailed review of evaluation protocols and benchmarks highlights how OS Agents are assessed across diverse tasks. Finally, we discuss current challenges and identify promising directions for future research, including safety and privacy, personalization and self-evolution. This survey aims to consolidate the state of OS Agents research, providing insights to guide both academic inquiry and industrial development. An open-source GitHub repository is maintained as a dynamic resource to foster further innovation in this field. We present a 9-page version of our work, accepted by ACL 2025, to provide a concise overview to the domain.
DRAMA: A Dynamic and Robust Allocation-based Multi-Agent System for Changing Environments
Wang, Naibo, Zhang, Yifan, Liu, Sai, Zhao, Xinkui, Cheng, Guanjie, Xu, Yueshen
Multi-agent systems (MAS) have demonstrated significant effectiveness in addressing complex problems through coordinated collaboration among heterogeneous agents. However, real-world environments and task specifications are inherently dynamic, characterized by frequent changes, uncertainty, and variability. Despite this, most existing MAS frameworks rely on static architectures with fixed agent capabilities and rigid task allocation strategies, which greatly limits their adaptability to evolving conditions. This inflexibility poses substantial challenges for sustaining robust and efficient multi-agent cooperation in dynamic and unpredictable scenarios. To address these limitations, we propose DRAMA: a Dynamic and Robust Allocation-based Multi-Agent System designed to facilitate resilient collaboration in rapidly changing environments. DRAMA features a modular architecture with a clear separation between the control plane and the worker plane. Both agents and tasks are abstracted as resource objects with well-defined lifecycles, while task allocation is achieved via an affinity-based, loosely coupled mechanism. The control plane enables real-time monitoring and centralized planning, allowing flexible and efficient task reassignment as agents join, depart, or become unavailable, thereby ensuring continuous and robust task execution. The worker plane comprises a cluster of autonomous agents, each with local reasoning, task execution, the ability to collaborate, and the capability to take over unfinished tasks from other agents when needed.