We introduced the Scorpion Hunting Strategy (SHS), a novel population-based, nature-inspired optimisation algorithm. This algorithm draws inspiration from the hunting strategy of scorpions, which identify, locate, and capture their prey using the alpha and beta vibration operators. These operators control the SHS algorithm's exploitation and exploration abilities. To formulate an optimisation method, we mathematically simulate these dynamic events and behaviors. We evaluate the effectiveness of the SHS algorithm by employing 20 benchmark functions (including 10 conventional and 10 CEC2020 functions), using both qualitative and quantitative analyses. Through a comparative analysis with 12 state-of-the-art meta-heuristic algorithms, we demonstrate that the proposed SHS algorithm yields exceptionally promising results. These findings are further supported by statistically significant results obtained through the Wilcoxon rank sum test. Additionally, the ranking of SHS, as determined by the average rank derived from the Friedman test, positions it at the forefront when compared to other algorithms. Going beyond theoretical validation, we showcase the practical utility of the SHS algorithm by applying it to six distinct real-world optimisation tasks. These applications illustrate the algorithm's potential in addressing complex optimisation challenges. In summary, this work not only introduces the innovative SHS algorithm but also substantiates its effectiveness and versatility through rigorous benchmarking and real-world problem-solving scenarios.

How can balance be quantified in game settings? This question is crucial for game designers, especially in player-versus-player (PvP) games, where analyzing the strength relations among predefined team compositions-such as hero combinations in multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games or decks in card games-is essential for enhancing gameplay and achieving balance. We have developed two advanced measures that extend beyond the simplistic win rate to quantify balance in zero-sum competitive scenarios. These measures are derived from win value estimations, which employ strength rating approximations via the Bradley-Terry model and counter relationship approximations via vector quantization, significantly reducing the computational complexity associated with traditional win value estimations. Throughout the learning process of these models, we identify useful categories of compositions and pinpoint their counter relationships, aligning with the experiences of human players without requiring specific game knowledge. Our methodology hinges on a simple technique to enhance codebook utilization in discrete representation with a deterministic vector quantization process for an extremely small state space. Our framework has been validated in popular online games, including Age of Empires II, Hearthstone, Brawl Stars, and League of Legends. The accuracy of the observed strength relations in these games is comparable to traditional pairwise win value predictions, while also offering a more manageable complexity for analysis. Ultimately, our findings contribute to a deeper understanding of PvP game dynamics and present a methodology that significantly improves game balance evaluation and design.

Owing to its minimal pollution and efficient energy use, wind energy has become one of the most widely exploited renewable energy resources. The successful integration of wind power into the grid system is contingent upon accurate wind speed forecasting models. However, the task of wind speed forecasting is challenging due to the inherent intermittent characteristics of wind speed. In this paper, a hybrid machine learning approach is developed for predicting short-term wind speed. First, the wind data was decomposed into modal components using Successive Variational Mode Decomposition (SVMD). Then, each sub-signal was fitted into a Least Squares Support Vector Machines (LSSVM) model, with its hyperparameter optimized by a novel variant of Quantum-behaved Particle Swarm Optimization (QPSO), QPSO with elitist breeding (EBQPSO). Second, the residuals making up for the differences between the original wind series and the aggregate of the SVMD modes were modeled using long short-term model (LSTM). Then, the overall predicted values were computed using the aggregate of the LSSVM and the LSTM models. Finally, the performance of the proposed model was compared against state-of-the-art benchmark models for forecasting wind speed using two separate data sets collected from a local wind farm. Empirical results show significant improvement in performance by the proposed method, achieving a 1.21% to 32.76% reduction in root mean square error (RMSE) and a 2.05% to 40.75% reduction in mean average error (MAE) compared to the benchmark methods. The entire code implementation of this work is freely available in Github.

The increasing availability of human demonstrations has spurred renewed interest in behavioral cloning [1, 2]. In particular, recent studies have highlighted the potential of learning from large-scale demonstrations to acquire a variety of complex skills [3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8]. However, this approach still struggles with two common properties of human demonstrations: (i) strong temporal dependencies across multiple steps, such as idle pauses [4] and latent strategies [9, 10], (ii) large style variability across different demonstrations, including differences in proficiency [11] and preference [12]. Oftentimes, both properties are prevalent yet unlabeled in collected data, posing significant challenges to traditional behavioral cloning, which typically learns a discriminative model to map an input state to a target action. In response to these challenges, recent works have pursued a generative approach characterized by two key elements: (i) predicting a sequence of actions over multiple time steps and executing all or part of the sequence, known as action chunking [3] or receding horizon [4]; (ii) modeling the distribution of action chunks and sampling from the learned model in an independent [4, 13] or weakly dependent [3, 14] manner during deployment. Some studies find these elements crucial for learning a performant policy in controlled laboratory scenarios [3, 4], while other recent work reports opposite outcomes under practical conditions [6]. The reasons behind these conflicting results remain unclear.

Abstract-- Task planning for robots in real-life settings presents significant challenges. These challenges stem from three primary issues: the difficulty in identifying grounded sequences of steps to achieve a goal; the lack of a standardized mapping between high-level actions and low-level commands; and the challenge of maintaining low computational overhead given the limited resources of robotic hardware. We introduce EMPOWER, a framework designed for open-vocabulary online grounding and planning for embodied agents aimed at addressing these issues. By leveraging efficient pre-trained foundation models and a multi-role mechanism, EMPOWER demonstrates notable improvements in grounded planning and execution. Quantitative results highlight the effectiveness of our approach, achieving an average success rate of 0.73 across six different real-life scenarios using a TIAGo robot.

The dominant practice of AI alignment assumes (1) that preferences are an adequate representation of human values, (2) that human rationality can be understood in terms of maximizing the satisfaction of preferences, and (3) that AI systems should be aligned with the preferences of one or more humans to ensure that they behave safely and in accordance with our values. Whether implicitly followed or explicitly endorsed, these commitments constitute what we term a preferentist approach to AI alignment. In this paper, we characterize and challenge the preferentist approach, describing conceptual and technical alternatives that are ripe for further research. We first survey the limits of rational choice theory as a descriptive model, explaining how preferences fail to capture the thick semantic content of human values, and how utility representations neglect the possible incommensurability of those values. We then critique the normativity of expected utility theory (EUT) for humans and AI, drawing upon arguments showing how rational agents need not comply with EUT, while highlighting how EUT is silent on which preferences are normatively acceptable. Finally, we argue that these limitations motivate a reframing of the targets of AI alignment: Instead of alignment with the preferences of a human user, developer, or humanity-writ-large, AI systems should be aligned with normative standards appropriate to their social roles, such as the role of a general-purpose assistant. Furthermore, these standards should be negotiated and agreed upon by all relevant stakeholders. On this alternative conception of alignment, a multiplicity of AI systems will be able to serve diverse ends, aligned with normative standards that promote mutual benefit and limit harm despite our plural and divergent values.

We introduce the concept and a default implementation of Guided Reasoning. A multi-agent system is a Guided Reasoning system iff one agent (the guide) primarily interacts with other agents in order to improve reasoning quality. We describe Logikon's default implementation of Guided Reasoning in non-technical terms. This is a living document we'll gradually enrich with more detailed information and examples.

The problem of reliably detecting and geolocating objects of different classes in soft real-time is essential in many application areas, such as Search and Rescue performed using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). This research addresses the complementary problems of system contextual vision-based detector selection, allocation, and execution, in addition to the fusion of detection results from teams of UAVs for the purpose of accurately and reliably geolocating objects of interest in a timely manner. In an offline step, an application-independent evaluation of vision-based detectors from a system perspective is first performed. Based on this evaluation, the most appropriate algorithms for online object detection for each platform are selected automatically before a mission, taking into account a number of practical system considerations, such as the available communication links, video compression used, and the available computational resources. The detection results are fused using a method for building maps of salient locations which takes advantage of a novel sensor model for vision-based detections for both positive and negative observations. A number of simulated and real flight experiments are also presented, validating the proposed method.

As language models (LMs) are widely utilized in personalized communication scenarios (e.g., sending emails, writing social media posts) and endowed with a certain level of agency, ensuring they act in accordance with the contextual privacy norms becomes increasingly critical. However, quantifying the privacy norm awareness of LMs and the emerging privacy risk in LM-mediated communication is challenging due to (1) the contextual and long-tailed nature of privacy-sensitive cases, and (2) the lack of evaluation approaches that capture realistic application scenarios. To address these challenges, we propose PrivacyLens, a novel framework designed to extend privacy-sensitive seeds into expressive vignettes and further into agent trajectories, enabling multi-level evaluation of privacy leakage in LM agents' actions. We instantiate PrivacyLens with a collection of privacy norms grounded in privacy literature and crowdsourced seeds. Using this dataset, we reveal a discrepancy between LM performance in answering probing questions and their actual behavior when executing user instructions in an agent setup. State-of-the-art LMs, like GPT-4 and Llama-3-70B, leak sensitive information in 25.68% and 38.69% of cases, even when prompted with privacy-enhancing instructions. We also demonstrate the dynamic nature of PrivacyLens by extending each seed into multiple trajectories to red-team LM privacy leakage risk. Dataset and code are available at https://github.com/SALT-NLP/PrivacyLens.

Fueled by advances in artificial intelligence, robotic process automation is impacting virtually every sector of the economy (McKinsey Global Institute 2017). The logistics sector lies at the core of this transformation: autonomous mobile robots are being deployed in tens of thousands of manufacturing and distribution facilities with a near-term $10-50 billion market potential (Grand View Research 2021, ABI Research 2021). A predominant operating model, shown in Figure 1, involves part-to-picker warehousing operations, which relies on robotic agents transporting shelves of inventory from a storage location to a workstation for a human operator to fulfill orders and back to a storage location. Robotic operations can improve throughput and working conditions by letting human workers focus on the more productive tasks, while improving system reliability. Yet, to truly take advantage of automation opportunities, modern warehousing systems require dedicated decision support tools to manage large robotic fleets and human-robot interactions in high-density operations. At the core of robotic process automation lies the computer vision, sensing, mapping and robotic technologies to empower autonomous agents--in our case, robots capable to move shelves of inventory. A subsequent problem involves control mechanisms to coordinate multiagent systems--in our case, to avoid conflicts and collisions between robots.