Understanding the theoretical foundations of attention mechanisms remains challenging due to their complex, non-linear dynamics. This work reveals a fundamental trade-off in the learning dynamics of linearized attention. Using a linearized attention mechanism with exact correspondence to a data-dependent Gram-induced kernel, both empirical and theoretical analysis through the Neural Tangent Kernel (NTK) framework shows that linearized attention does not converge to its infinite-width NTK limit, even at large widths. A spectral amplification result establishes this formally: the attention transformation cubes the Gram matrix's condition number, requiring width $m = Ω(κ^6)$ for convergence, a threshold that exceeds any practical width for natural image datasets. This non-convergence is characterized through influence malleability, the capacity to dynamically alter reliance on training examples. Attention exhibits 6--9$\times$ higher malleability than ReLU networks, with dual implications: its data-dependent kernel can reduce approximation error by aligning with task structure, but this same sensitivity increases susceptibility to adversarial manipulation of training data. These findings suggest that attention's power and vulnerability share a common origin in its departure from the kernel regime.

Vision-Language Models (VLMs) perform well on multimodal benchmarks but lag behind humans and specialized models on visual perception tasks like depth estimation or object counting. Finetuning on one task can unpredictably affect performance on others, making task-specific finetuning challenging. In this paper, we address this challenge through a systematic study of task transferability. We examine how finetuning a VLM on one perception task affects its zero-shot performance on others. To quantify these effects, we introduce Perfection Gap Factor (PGF), a metric that captures both the breadth and magnitude of transfer. Using three open-weight VLMs evaluated across 13 perception tasks, we construct a task-transfer graph that reveals previously unobserved relationships among perception tasks. Our analysis uncovers patterns of positive and negative transfer, identifies groups of tasks that mutually influence each other, organizes tasks into personas based on their transfer behavior and demonstrates how PGF can guide data selection for more efficient training. These findings highlight both opportunities for positive transfer and risks of negative interference, offering actionable guidance for advancing VLMs.

The inability of autonomous vehicles (AVs) to infer the material properties of obstacles limits their decision-making capacity. While AVs rely on sensor systems such as cameras, LiDAR, and radar to detect obstacles, this study suggests combining sensors with a knowledge graph (KG)-based world model to improve AVs' comprehension of physical material qualities. Beyond sensor data, AVs can infer qualities such as malleability, density, and elasticity using a semantic KG that depicts the relationships between obstacles and their attributes. Using the CARLA autonomous driving simulator, we evaluated AV performance with and without KG integration. The findings demonstrate that the KG-based method improves obstacle management, which allows AVs to use material qualities to make better decisions about when to change lanes or apply emergency braking. For example, the KG-integrated AV changed lanes for hard impediments like traffic cones and successfully avoided collisions with flexible items such as plastic bags by passing over them. Compared to the control system, the KG framework demonstrated improved responsiveness to obstacles by resolving conflicting sensor data, causing emergency stops for 13.3% more cases. In addition, our method exhibits a 6.6% higher success rate in lane-changing maneuvers in experimental scenarios, particularly for larger, high-impact obstacles. While we focus particularly on autonomous driving, our work demonstrates the potential of KG-based world models to improve decision-making in embodied AI systems and scale to other domains, including robotics, healthcare, and environmental simulation.

The analysis of political biases in large language models (LLMs) has primarily examined these systems as single entities with fixed viewpoints. While various methods exist for measuring such biases, the impact of persona-based prompting on LLMs' political orientation remains unexplored. In this work we leverage PersonaHub, a collection of synthetic persona descriptions, to map the political distribution of persona-based prompted LLMs using the Political Compass Test (PCT). We then examine whether these initial compass distributions can be manipulated through explicit ideological prompting towards diametrically opposed political orientations: right-authoritarian and left-libertarian. Our experiments reveal that synthetic personas predominantly cluster in the left-libertarian quadrant, with models demonstrating varying degrees of responsiveness when prompted with explicit ideological descriptors. While all models demonstrate significant shifts towards right-authoritarian positions, they exhibit more limited shifts towards left-libertarian positions, suggesting an asymmetric response to ideological manipulation that may reflect inherent biases in model training.

Some would contend that there is the law and then there is everything else. You've likely heard that well-worn line before. It is certainly eye-catching and memorable. What makes the catchphrase especially interesting is that somewhere in that morass is so-called soft law, sitting somewhat in a no man's zone. Yes, there is a nebulous grey area that is not quite a law and yet oftentimes provides a law-like shaping and tonal directive toward what we can do, including whether our actions are seemingly lawful or ostensibly could veer into becoming unlawful.