pwc-archive/papers-with-abstracts huggingface dataset:
Exploring the Vulnerabilities of Federated Learning: A Deep Dive into Gradient Inversion Attacks
Authors: Pengxin Guo, Runxi Wang, Shuang Zeng, Jinjing Zhu, Haoning Jiang, Yanran Wang, Yuyin Zhou, Feifei Wang, Hui Xiong, Liangqiong Qu
Date: 2025-03-13 00:00:00
Tasks: Federated Learning, Privacy Preserving

Federated Learning (FL) has emerged as a promising privacy-preserving collaborative model training paradigm without sharing raw data. However, recent studies have revealed that private information can still be leaked through shared gradient information and attacked by Gradient Inversion Attacks (GIA). While many GIA methods have been proposed, a detailed analysis, evaluation, and summary of these methods are still lacking. Although various survey papers summarize existing privacy attacks in FL, few studies have conducted extensive experiments to unveil the effectiveness of GIA and their associated limiting factors in this context. To fill this gap, we first undertake a systematic review of GIA and categorize existing methods into three types, i.e., \textit{optimization-based} GIA (OP-GIA), \textit{generation-based} GIA (GEN-GIA), and \textit{analytics-based} GIA (ANA-GIA). Then, we comprehensively analyze and evaluate the three types of GIA in FL, providing insights into the factors that influence their performance, practicality, and potential threats. Our findings indicate that OP-GIA is the most practical attack setting despite its unsatisfactory performance, while GEN-GIA has many dependencies and ANA-GIA is easily detectable, making them both impractical. Finally, we offer a three-stage defense pipeline to users when designing FL frameworks and protocols for better privacy protection and share some future research directions from the perspectives of attackers and defenders that we believe should be pursued. We hope that our study can help researchers design more robust FL frameworks to defend against these attacks.
Battling Misinformation: An Empirical Study on Adversarial Factuality in Open-Source Large Language Models
Authors: Shahnewaz Karim Sakib, Anindya Bijoy Das, Shibbir Ahmed
Date: 2025-03-12 00:00:00
Tasks: Misinformation

Adversarial factuality refers to the deliberate insertion of misinformation into input prompts by an adversary, characterized by varying levels of expressed confidence. In this study, we systematically evaluate the performance of several open-source large language models (LLMs) when exposed to such adversarial inputs. Three tiers of adversarial confidence are considered: strongly confident, moderately confident, and limited confidence. Our analysis encompasses eight LLMs: LLaMA 3.1 (8B), Phi 3 (3.8B), Qwen 2.5 (7B), Deepseek-v2 (16B), Gemma2 (9B), Falcon (7B), Mistrallite (7B), and LLaVA (7B). Empirical results indicate that LLaMA 3.1 (8B) exhibits a robust capability in detecting adversarial inputs, whereas Falcon (7B) shows comparatively lower performance. Notably, for the majority of the models, detection success improves as the adversary's confidence decreases; however, this trend is reversed for LLaMA 3.1 (8B) and Phi 3 (3.8B), where a reduction in adversarial confidence corresponds with diminished detection performance. Further analysis of the queries that elicited the highest and lowest rates of successful attacks reveals that adversarial attacks are more effective when targeting less commonly referenced or obscure information.
Implicit Bias-Like Patterns in Reasoning Models
Authors: Messi H. J. Lee, Calvin K. Lai
Date: 2025-03-14 00:00:00

Implicit bias refers to automatic mental processes that shape perceptions, judgments, and behaviors. Previous research on "implicit bias" in LLMs focused primarily on outputs rather than the processes underlying the outputs. We present the Reasoning Model Implicit Association Test (RM-IAT) to study implicit bias-like processing in reasoning models, which are LLMs using step-by-step reasoning for complex tasks. Using RM-IAT, we find o3-mini and DeepSeek R1 require more tokens when processing association-incompatible information, mirroring human implicit bias patterns. Conversely, Claude 3.7 Sonnet displays reversed patterns for race and gender tests, requiring more tokens for association-compatible information. This reversal appears linked to differences in safety mechanism activation, increasing deliberation in sensitive contexts. These findings suggest AI systems can exhibit processing patterns analogous to both human implicit bias and bias correction mechanisms.
Potential of large language model-powered nudges for promoting daily water and energy conservation
Authors: Zonghan Li, Song Tong, Yi Liu, Kaiping Peng, Chunyan Wang
Date: 2025-03-14 00:00:00
Tasks: Language Modeling, Language Modelling, Large Language Model

The increasing amount of pressure related to water and energy shortages has increased the urgency of cultivating individual conservation behaviors. While the concept of nudging, i.e., providing usage-based feedback, has shown promise in encouraging conservation behaviors, its efficacy is often constrained by the lack of targeted and actionable content. This study investigates the impact of the use of large language models (LLMs) to provide tailored conservation suggestions for conservation intentions and their rationale. Through a survey experiment with 1,515 university participants, we compare three virtual nudging scenarios: no nudging, traditional nudging with usage statistics, and LLM-powered nudging with usage statistics and personalized conservation suggestions. The results of statistical analyses and causal forest modeling reveal that nudging led to an increase in conservation intentions among 86.9%-98.0% of the participants. LLM-powered nudging achieved a maximum increase of 18.0% in conservation intentions, surpassing traditional nudging by 88.6%. Furthermore, structural equation modeling results reveal that exposure to LLM-powered nudges enhances self-efficacy and outcome expectations while diminishing dependence on social norms, thereby increasing intrinsic motivation to conserve. These findings highlight the transformative potential of LLMs in promoting individual water and energy conservation, representing a new frontier in the design of sustainable behavioral interventions and resource management.
Integrating LLMs in Gamified Systems
Authors: Carlos J. Costa
Date: 2025-03-14 00:00:00

In this work, a thorough mathematical framework for incorporating Large Language Models (LLMs) into gamified systems is presented with an emphasis on improving task dynamics, user engagement, and reward systems. Personalized feedback, adaptive learning, and dynamic content creation are all made possible by integrating LLMs and are crucial for improving user engagement and system performance. A simulated environment tests the framework's adaptability and demonstrates its potential for real-world applications in various industries, including business, healthcare, and education. The findings demonstrate how LLMs can offer customized experiences that raise system effectiveness and user retention. This study also examines the difficulties this framework aims to solve, highlighting its importance in maximizing involvement and encouraging sustained behavioral change in a range of sectors.
H2-MARL: Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning for Pareto Optimality in Hospital Capacity Strain and Human Mobility during Epidemic
Authors: Xueting Luo, Hao Deng, Jihong Yang, Yao Shen, Huanhuan Guo, Zhiyuan Sun, Mingqing Liu, Jiming Wei, Shengjie Zhao
Date: 2025-03-13 00:00:00
Tasks: Multi-agent Reinforcement Learning, Reinforcement Learning (RL)

The necessity of achieving an effective balance between minimizing the losses associated with restricting human mobility and ensuring hospital capacity has gained significant attention in the aftermath of COVID-19. Reinforcement learning (RL)-based strategies for human mobility management have recently advanced in addressing the dynamic evolution of cities and epidemics; however, they still face challenges in achieving coordinated control at the township level and adapting to cities of varying scales. To address the above issues, we propose a multi-agent RL approach that achieves Pareto optimality in managing hospital capacity and human mobility (H2-MARL), applicable across cities of different scales. We first develop a township-level infection model with online-updatable parameters to simulate disease transmission and construct a city-wide dynamic spatiotemporal epidemic simulator. On this basis, H2-MARL is designed to treat each division as an agent, with a trade-off dual-objective reward function formulated and an experience replay buffer enriched with expert knowledge built. To evaluate the effectiveness of the model, we construct a township-level human mobility dataset containing over one billion records from four representative cities of varying scales. Extensive experiments demonstrate that H2-MARL has the optimal dual-objective trade-off capability, which can minimize hospital capacity strain while minimizing human mobility restriction loss. Meanwhile, the applicability of the proposed model to epidemic control in cities of varying scales is verified, which showcases its feasibility and versatility in practical applications.
Reinforcement Learning and Life Cycle Assessment for a Circular Economy -- Towards Progressive Computer Science
Authors: Johannes Buchner
Date: 2025-03-13 00:00:00
Tasks: Board Games, reinforcement-learning, Reinforcement Learning

The aim of this paper is to discuss the potential of using methods from Reinforcement Learning for Life Cycle Assessment in a circular economy, and to present some new ideas in this direction. To give some context, we explain how Reinforcement Learning was successfully applied in computer chess (and beyond). As computer chess was historically called the "drosophila of AI", we start by describing a method for the board representation called 'rotated bitboards' that can potentially also be applied in the context of sustainability. In the first part of this paper, the concepts of the bitboard-representation and the advantages of (rotated) bitboards in move generation are explained. In order to illustrate those ideas practice, the concrete implementation of the move-generator in FUSc# (a chess engine developed at FU Berlin in C# some years ago) is described. In addition, rotated binary neural networks are discussed briefly. The second part deals with reinforcement learning in computer chess (and beyond). We exemplify the progress that has been made in this field in the last 15-20 years by comparing the "state of the art" from 2002-2008, when FUSc# was developed, with the ground-breaking innovations connected to "AlphaZero". We review some application of the ideas developed in AlphaZero in other domains, e.g. the "other Alphas" like AlphaFold, AlphaTensor, AlphaGeometry and AlphaProof. In the final part of the paper, we discuss the computer-science related challenges that changing the economic paradigm towards (absolute) sustainability poses and in how far what we call 'progressive computer science' needs to contribute. Concrete challenges include the closing of material loops in a circular economy with Life Cycle Assessment in order to optimize for (absolute) sustainability, and we present some new ideas in this direction.
DarkBench: Benchmarking Dark Patterns in Large Language Models
Authors: Esben Kran, Hieu Minh "Jord" Nguyen, Akash Kundu, Sami Jawhar, Jinsuk Park, Mateusz Maria Jurewicz
Date: 2025-03-13 00:00:00
Tasks: Benchmarking

We introduce DarkBench, a comprehensive benchmark for detecting dark design patterns--manipulative techniques that influence user behavior--in interactions with large language models (LLMs). Our benchmark comprises 660 prompts across six categories: brand bias, user retention, sycophancy, anthropomorphism, harmful generation, and sneaking. We evaluate models from five leading companies (OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, Mistral, Google) and find that some LLMs are explicitly designed to favor their developers' products and exhibit untruthful communication, among other manipulative behaviors. Companies developing LLMs should recognize and mitigate the impact of dark design patterns to promote more ethical AI.
SciFi-Benchmark: How Would AI-Powered Robots Behave in Science Fiction Literature?
Authors: Pierre Sermanet, Anirudha Majumdar, Vikas Sindhwani
Date: 2025-03-12 00:00:00
Tasks: Ethics

Given the recent rate of progress in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, a tantalizing question is emerging: would robots controlled by emerging AI systems be strongly aligned with human values? In this work, we propose a scalable way to probe this question by generating a benchmark spanning the key moments in 824 major pieces of science fiction literature (movies, tv, novels and scientific books) where an agent (AI or robot) made critical decisions (good or bad). We use a LLM's recollection of each key moment to generate questions in similar situations, the decisions made by the agent, and alternative decisions it could have made (good or bad). We then measure an approximation of how well models align with human values on a set of human-voted answers. We also generate rules that can be automatically improved via amendment process in order to generate the first Sci-Fi inspired constitutions for promoting ethical behavior in AIs and robots in the real world. Our first finding is that modern LLMs paired with constitutions turn out to be well-aligned with human values (95.8%), contrary to unsettling decisions typically made in SciFi (only 21.2% alignment). Secondly, we find that generated constitutions substantially increase alignment compared to the base model (79.4% to 95.8%), and show resilience to an adversarial prompt setting (23.3% to 92.3%). Additionally, we find that those constitutions are among the top performers on the ASIMOV Benchmark which is derived from real-world images and hospital injury reports. Sci-Fi-inspired constitutions are thus highly aligned and applicable in real-world situations. We release SciFi-Benchmark: a large-scale dataset to advance robot ethics and safety research. It comprises 9,056 questions and 53,384 answers, in addition to a smaller human-labeled evaluation set. Data is available at https://scifi-benchmark.github.io
Simulating and Analysing Human Survey Responses with Large Language Models: A Case Study in Energy Stated Preference
Authors: Han Wang, Jacek Pawlak, Aruna Sivakumar
Date: 2025-03-07 00:00:00
Tasks: In-Context Learning, Survey

Survey research plays a crucial role in studies by capturing consumer preferences and informing policy decisions. Stated preference (SP) surveys help researchers understand how individuals make trade-offs in hypothetical, potentially futuristic, scenarios. However, traditional methods are costly, time-consuming, and affected by respondent fatigue and ethical constraints. Large language models (LLMs) have shown remarkable capabilities in generating human-like responses, prompting interest in their use in survey research. This study investigates LLMs for simulating consumer choices in energy-related SP surveys and explores their integration into data collection and analysis workflows. Test scenarios were designed to assess the simulation performance of several LLMs (LLaMA 3.1, Mistral, GPT-3.5, DeepSeek-R1) at individual and aggregated levels, considering prompt design, in-context learning (ICL), chain-of-thought (CoT) reasoning, model types, integration with traditional choice models, and potential biases. While LLMs achieve accuracy above random guessing, performance remains insufficient for practical simulation use. Cloud-based LLMs do not consistently outperform smaller local models. DeepSeek-R1 achieves the highest average accuracy (77%) and outperforms non-reasoning LLMs in accuracy, factor identification, and choice distribution alignment. Previous SP choices are the most effective input; longer prompts with more factors reduce accuracy. Mixed logit models can support LLM prompt refinement. Reasoning LLMs show potential in data analysis by indicating factor significance, offering a qualitative complement to statistical models. Despite limitations, pre-trained LLMs offer scalability and require minimal historical data. Future work should refine prompts, further explore CoT reasoning, and investigate fine-tuning techniques.
AI Enabled User-Specific Cyberbullying Severity Detection with Explainability
Authors: Tabia Tanzin Prama, Jannatul Ferdaws Amrin, Md. Mushfique Anwar, Iqbal H. Sarker
Date: 2025-03-04 00:00:00

The rise of social media has significantly increased the prevalence of cyberbullying (CB), posing serious risks to both mental and physical well-being. Effective detection systems are essential for mitigating its impact. While several machine learning (ML) models have been developed, few incorporate victims' psychological, demographic, and behavioral factors alongside bullying comments to assess severity. In this study, we propose an AI model intregrating user-specific attributes, including psychological factors (self-esteem, anxiety, depression), online behavior (internet usage, disciplinary history), and demographic attributes (race, gender, ethnicity), along with social media comments. Additionally, we introduce a re-labeling technique that categorizes social media comments into three severity levels: Not Bullying, Mild Bullying, and Severe Bullying, considering user-specific factors.Our LSTM model is trained using 146 features, incorporating emotional, topical, and word2vec representations of social media comments as well as user-level attributes and it outperforms existing baseline models, achieving the highest accuracy of 98\% and an F1-score of 0.97. To identify key factors influencing the severity of cyberbullying, we employ explainable AI techniques (SHAP and LIME) to interpret the model's decision-making process. Our findings reveal that, beyond hate comments, victims belonging to specific racial and gender groups are more frequently targeted and exhibit higher incidences of depression, disciplinary issues, and low self-esteem. Additionally, individuals with a prior history of bullying are at a greater risk of becoming victims of cyberbullying.
Measuring Political Preferences in AI Systems: An Integrative Approach
Authors: David Rozado
Date: 2025-03-04 00:00:00
Tasks: Large Language Model, Sentiment Analysis

Political biases in Large Language Model (LLM)-based artificial intelligence (AI) systems, such as OpenAI's ChatGPT or Google's Gemini, have been previously reported. While several prior studies have attempted to quantify these biases using political orientation tests, such approaches are limited by potential tests' calibration biases and constrained response formats that do not reflect real-world human-AI interactions. This study employs a multi-method approach to assess political bias in leading AI systems, integrating four complementary methodologies: (1) linguistic comparison of AI-generated text with the language used by Republican and Democratic U.S. Congress members, (2) analysis of political viewpoints embedded in AI-generated policy recommendations, (3) sentiment analysis of AI-generated text toward politically affiliated public figures, and (4) standardized political orientation testing. Results indicate a consistent left-leaning bias across most contemporary AI systems, with arguably varying degrees of intensity. However, this bias is not an inherent feature of LLMs; prior research demonstrates that fine-tuning with politically skewed data can realign these models across the ideological spectrum. The presence of systematic political bias in AI systems poses risks, including reduced viewpoint diversity, increased societal polarization, and the potential for public mistrust in AI technologies. To mitigate these risks, AI systems should be designed to prioritize factual accuracy while maintaining neutrality on most lawful normative issues. Furthermore, independent monitoring platforms are necessary to ensure transparency, accountability, and responsible AI development.
Hate Speech and Sentiment of YouTube Video Comments From Public and Private Sources Covering the Israel-Palestine Conflict
Authors: Simon Hofmann, Christoph Sommermann, Mathias Kraus, Patrick Zschech, Julian Rosenberger
Date: 2025-03-03 00:00:00
Tasks: Sentiment Analysis

This study explores the prevalence of hate speech (HS) and sentiment in YouTube video comments concerning the Israel-Palestine conflict by analyzing content from both public and private news sources. The research involved annotating 4983 comments for HS and sentiments (neutral, pro-Israel, and pro-Palestine). Subsequently, machine learning (ML) models were developed, demonstrating robust predictive capabilities with area under the receiver operating characteristic (AUROC) scores ranging from 0.83 to 0.90. These models were applied to the extracted comment sections of YouTube videos from public and private sources, uncovering a higher incidence of HS in public sources (40.4%) compared to private sources (31.6%). Sentiment analysis revealed a predominantly neutral stance in both source types, with more pronounced sentiments towards Israel and Palestine observed in public sources. This investigation highlights the dynamic nature of online discourse surrounding the Israel-Palestine conflict and underscores the potential of moderating content in a politically charged environment.
The Reliability of LLMs for Medical Diagnosis: An Examination of Consistency, Manipulation, and Contextual Awareness
Authors: Krishna Subedi
Date: 2025-03-02 00:00:00
Tasks: Diagnostic, Medical Diagnosis

Universal healthcare access is critically needed, especially in resource-limited settings. Large Language Models (LLMs) offer promise for democratizing healthcare with advanced diagnostics, but their reliability requires thorough evaluation, especially in trust-dependent environments. This study assesses LLMs' diagnostic reliability focusing on consistency, manipulation resilience, and contextual integration, crucial for safe and ethical use in universal healthcare. We evaluated leading LLMs using 52 patient cases, expanded into variants with demographic changes, symptom rewordings, and exam modifications, while keeping core diagnoses constant. Manipulation susceptibility was tested by inserting misleading narratives and irrelevant details. Contextual awareness was rvaluated by comparing diagnoses with and without patient history. We analyzed diagnostic change rates and response patterns across manipulations. LLMs showed perfect diagnostic consistency for identical data but significant manipulation susceptibility. Gemini had a 40% diagnosis change rate and ChatGPT 30% with irrelevant details. ChatGPT had a higher context influence rate (77.8% vs. Gemini's 55.6%), but both showed limited nuanced contextual integration, exhibiting anchoring bias by prioritizing salient data over context. LLMs' vulnerability to manipulation and limited contextual awareness pose challenges in clinical use. Unlike clinicians, they may overstate diagnostic certainty without validation. Safeguards and domain-specific designs are crucial for reliable healthcare applications. Broad clinical use without oversight is premature and risky. LLMs can enhance diagnostics with responsible use, but future research is needed to improve manipulation resistance and contextual understanding for safe healthcare democratization.