We investigate the design of pooling methods used to summarize the outputs of transformer embedding models, primarily motivated by reinforcement learning and vision applications. This work considers problems where a subset of the input vectors contains requisite information for a downstream task (signal) while the rest are distractors (noise). By framing pooling as vector quantization with the goal of minimizing signal loss, we demonstrate that the standard methods used to aggregate transformer outputs, AvgPool, MaxPool, and ClsToken, are vulnerable to performance collapse as the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of inputs fluctuates. We then show that an attention-based adaptive pooling method can approximate the signal-optimal vector quantizer within derived error bounds for any SNR. Our theoretical results are first validated by supervised experiments on a synthetic dataset designed to isolate the SNR problem, then generalized to standard relational reasoning, multi-agent reinforcement learning, and vision benchmarks with noisy observations, where transformers with adaptive pooling display superior robustness across tasks.

AI models have become active decision makers, often acting without human supervision. The rapid advancement of AI technology has already caused harmful incidents that have hurt individuals and societies and AI unfairness in heavily criticized. It is urgent to disrupt AI pipelines which largely neglect human principles and focus on computational biases exploration at the data (pre), model(in), and deployment (post) processing stages. We claim that by exploiting the advances of agents technology, we will introduce cautious, prompt, and ongoing fairness watch schemes, under realistic, systematic, and human-centric fairness expectations. We envision agents as fairness guardians, since agents learn from their environment, adapt to new information, and solve complex problems by interacting with external tools and other systems. To set the proper fairness guardrails in the overall AI pipeline, we introduce a fairness-by-design approach which embeds multi-role agents in an end-to-end (human to AI) synergetic scheme. Our position is that we may design adaptive and realistic AI fairness frameworks, and we introduce a generalized algorithm which can be customized to the requirements and goals of each AI decision making scenario. Our proposed, so called FAIRTOPIA framework, is structured over a three-layered architecture, which encapsulates the AI pipeline inside an agentic guardian and a knowledge-based, self-refining layered scheme. Based on our proposition, we enact fairness watch in all of the AI pipeline stages, under robust multi-agent workflows, which will inspire new fairness research hypothesis, heuristics, and methods grounded in human-centric, systematic, interdisciplinary, socio-technical principles.

We introduce **SWE-Flow**, a novel data synthesis framework grounded in Test-Driven Development (TDD). Unlike existing software engineering data that rely on human-submitted issues, **SWE-Flow** automatically infers incremental development steps directly from unit tests, which inherently encapsulate high-level requirements. The core of **SWE-Flow** is the construction of a Runtime Dependency Graph (RDG), which precisely captures function interactions, enabling the generation of a structured, step-by-step *development schedule*. At each step, **SWE-Flow** produces a partial codebase, the corresponding unit tests, and the necessary code modifications, resulting in fully verifiable TDD tasks. With this approach, we generated 16,061 training instances and 2,020 test instances from real-world GitHub projects, creating the **SWE-Flow-Eval** benchmark. Our experiments show that fine-tuning open model on this dataset significantly improves performance in TDD-based coding. To facilitate further research, we release all code, datasets, models, and Docker images at [Github](https://github.com/Hambaobao/SWE-Flow).

Recent advances in multimodal vision-language-action (VLA) models have revolutionized traditional robot learning, enabling systems to interpret vision, language, and action in unified frameworks for complex task planning. However, mastering complex manipulation tasks remains an open challenge, constrained by limitations in persistent contextual memory, multi-agent coordination under uncertainty, and dynamic long-horizon planning across variable sequences. To address this challenge, we propose \textbf{HiBerNAC}, a \textbf{Hi}erarchical \textbf{B}rain-\textbf{e}mulated \textbf{r}obotic \textbf{N}eural \textbf{A}gent \textbf{C}ollective, inspired by breakthroughs in neuroscience, particularly in neural circuit mechanisms and hierarchical decision-making. Our framework combines: (1) multimodal VLA planning and reasoning with (2) neuro-inspired reflection and multi-agent mechanisms, specifically designed for complex robotic manipulation tasks. By leveraging neuro-inspired functional modules with decentralized multi-agent collaboration, our approach enables robust and enhanced real-time execution of complex manipulation tasks. In addition, the agentic system exhibits scalable collective intelligence via dynamic agent specialization, adapting its coordination strategy to variable task horizons and complexity. Through extensive experiments on complex manipulation tasks compared with state-of-the-art VLA models, we demonstrate that \textbf{HiBerNAC} reduces average long-horizon task completion time by 23\%, and achieves non-zero success rates (12\textendash 31\%) on multi-path tasks where prior state-of-the-art VLA models consistently fail. These results provide indicative evidence for bridging biological cognition and robotic learning mechanisms.

Large Language Model (LLM)-based multi-agent systems show promise for automating real-world tasks but struggle to transfer across domains due to their domain-specific nature. Current approaches face two critical shortcomings: they require complete architectural redesign and full retraining of all components when applied to new domains. We introduce Workforce, a hierarchical multi-agent framework that decouples strategic planning from specialized execution through a modular architecture comprising: (i) a domain-agnostic Planner for task decomposition, (ii) a Coordinator for subtask management, and (iii) specialized Workers with domain-specific tool-calling capabilities. This decoupling enables cross-domain transferability during both inference and training phases: During inference, Workforce seamlessly adapts to new domains by adding or modifying worker agents; For training, we introduce Optimized Workforce Learning (OWL), which improves generalization across domains by optimizing a domain-agnostic planner with reinforcement learning from real-world feedback. To validate our approach, we evaluate Workforce on the GAIA benchmark, covering various realistic, multi-domain agentic tasks. Experimental results demonstrate Workforce achieves open-source state-of-the-art performance (69.70%), outperforming commercial systems like OpenAI's Deep Research by 2.34%. More notably, our OWL-trained 32B model achieves 52.73% accuracy (+16.37%) and demonstrates performance comparable to GPT-4o on challenging tasks. To summarize, by enabling scalable generalization and modular domain transfer, our work establishes a foundation for the next generation of general-purpose AI assistants.

Long-horizon robotic manipulation poses significant challenges for autonomous systems, requiring extended reasoning, precise execution, and robust error recovery across complex sequential tasks. Current approaches, whether based on static planning or end-to-end visuomotor policies, suffer from error accumulation and lack effective verification mechanisms during execution, limiting their reliability in real-world scenarios. We present Agentic Robot, a brain-inspired framework that addresses these limitations through Standardized Action Procedure (SAP)--a novel coordination protocol governing component interactions throughout manipulation tasks. Drawing inspiration from Standardized Operating Procedures (SOPs) in human organizations, SAP establishes structured workflows for planning, execution, and verification phases. Our architecture comprises three specialized components: (1) a large reasoning model that decomposes high-level instructions into semantically coherent subgoals, (2) a vision-language-action executor that generates continuous control commands from real-time visual inputs, and (3) a temporal verifier that enables autonomous progression and error recovery through introspective assessment. This SAP-driven closed-loop design supports dynamic self-verification without external supervision. On the LIBERO benchmark, Agentic Robot achieves state-of-the-art performance with an average success rate of 79.6%, outperforming SpatialVLA by 6.1% and OpenVLA by 7.4% on long-horizon tasks. These results demonstrate that SAP-driven coordination between specialized components enhances both performance and interpretability in sequential manipulation, suggesting significant potential for reliable autonomous systems. Project Github: https://agentic-robot.github.io.

Deliberative democracy depends on carefully designed institutional frameworks -- such as participant selection, facilitation methods, and decision - making mechanisms -- that shape how deliberation performs . However, identifying optimal institutional designs for specific contexts remains challenging when relying solely on real - world observations or laboratory experiments: they can be expensive, ethically and methodologically tricky, or too limited in scale to give us clear answers . Computational experiments offer a complementary approach, enabling researchers to conduct large - scale investigations while systematically analyzing complex dynamics, emergent and unexpected collective behavior, and risks or opportunities associated with novel democratic designs . Therefore, this paper explores Digital Twin (DT) technology as a computational testing ground for deliberative systems (with potential applicability to broader institutional analysis) . By constructing dynamic models that simulate real - world deliberation, DTs allow researchers and policymakers to rigorously test "what - if" scenarios across diverse institutional configurations in a controlled virtual environment. This approach facilitates evidence - based assessment of novel designs using synthetically generated data, bypassing the constraints of real - world or lab - based experimentation, and without societal disruption. The paper also discusses the limitations of this new methodological approach and suggest s where future research should focus .

Machine translation has long been a central task in natural language processing. With the rapid advancement of large language models (LLMs), there has been remarkable progress in translation quality. However, fully realizing the translation potential of LLMs remains an open challenge. Recent studies have explored multi-agent systems to decompose complex translation tasks into collaborative subtasks, showing initial promise in enhancing translation quality through agent cooperation and specialization. Nevertheless, existing multi-agent translation frameworks largely neglect foundational insights from cognitive translation studies. These insights emphasize how human translators employ different cognitive strategies, such as balancing literal and free translation, refining expressions based on context, and iteratively evaluating outputs. To address this limitation, we propose a cognitively informed multi-agent framework called TACTIC, which stands for T ranslation A gents with Cognitive- T heoretic Interactive Collaboration. The framework comprises six functionally distinct agents that mirror key cognitive processes observed in human translation behavior. These include agents for drafting, refinement, evaluation, scoring, context reasoning, and external knowledge gathering. By simulating an interactive and theory-grounded translation workflow, TACTIC effectively leverages the full capacity of LLMs for high-quality translation. Experimental results on diverse language pairs from the FLORES-200 and WMT24 benchmarks show that our method consistently achieves state-of-the-art performance. Using DeepSeek-V3 as the base model, TACTIC surpasses GPT-4.1 by an average of +0.6 XCOMET and +1.18 COMETKIWI-23. Compared to DeepSeek-R1, it further improves by +0.84 XCOMET and +2.99 COMETKIWI-23. Code is available at https://github.com/weiyali126/TACTIC.

Recent advances in large language models (LLMs) and vision-language models (VLMs) have enabled powerful autonomous agents capable of complex reasoning and multi-modal tool use. Despite their growing capabilities, today's agent frameworks remain fragile, lacking principled mechanisms for secure information flow, reliability, and multi-agent coordination. In this work, we introduce SAFEFLOW, a new protocol-level framework for building trustworthy LLM/VLM-based agents. SAFEFLOW enforces fine-grained information flow control (IFC), precisely tracking provenance, integrity, and confidentiality of all the data exchanged between agents, tools, users, and environments. By constraining LLM reasoning to respect these security labels, SAFEFLOW prevents untrusted or adversarial inputs from contaminating high-integrity decisions. To ensure robustness in concurrent multi-agent settings, SAFEFLOW introduces transactional execution, conflict resolution, and secure scheduling over shared state, preserving global consistency across agents. We further introduce mechanisms, including write-ahead logging, rollback, and secure caches, that further enhance resilience against runtime errors and policy violations. To validate the performances, we built SAFEFLOWBENCH, a comprehensive benchmark suite designed to evaluate agent reliability under adversarial, noisy, and concurrent operational conditions. Extensive experiments demonstrate that agents built with SAFEFLOW maintain impressive task performance and security guarantees even in hostile environments, substantially outperforming state-of-the-art. Together, SAFEFLOW and SAFEFLOWBENCH lay the groundwork for principled, robust, and secure agent ecosystems, advancing the frontier of reliable autonomy.

What does the future of the internet look like? If AI firms get their way, the once-open web could be fractured into digital silos dominated by commercial AI models, leaving hobbyists and small businesses behind. To prevent this, a team of grassroots researchers is planning to fight back and ensure an open approach to AI. At the heart of this battle is the concept of an AI "agent", a piece of software that browses the web and interacts with websites according to the instructions of a human user – for example, planning and booking a holiday. Many people see agents as the next evolution of services like ChatGPT, but getting them to work is proving tricky.