arXiv Machine Learning

Visual Tripwires: Anticipating Failure in Deep Vision Systems

arXiv Computer Vision
Sep 7

FailSAE: Towards Interpretable Failure Prediction for Vision-Language Models via Sparse Autoencoders

The paper introduces FailSAE, a method that uses Sparse Autoencoders to predict failures in vision‑language models (VLMs) such as CLIP. By treating failure prediction as a classification over sparse SAE latent activations and employing a three‑stage training pipeline, the approach yields higher prediction accuracy than existing confidence‑score or auxiliary‑classifier baselines. Analysis shows that the SAE captures class‑specific concepts and reveals a shift toward ambiguous or style‑related concepts during failures, offering insights for runtime failure recovery.

By Jie Ma, Zongxi Liu, Yi Zhu
arXiv AI
2d ago

Towards Reliable Vision-Language Models for Autonomous Driving

The paper evaluates five vision‑language models on autonomous driving tasks under various visual input conditions, finding that visual corruption affects accuracy and confidence differently across models and datasets. It then tests Visual Evidence Augmentation (VEA) as an inference‑time technique to enhance reliability, observing mixed improvements depending on the model and setting.

By Manasa Mariam Mammen, Priyanka Mary Mammen, Zafer Kayatas, Stefan Wagner
arXiv AI
Sep 16

Same Answer, Different Representations: Hidden instability in VLMs

arXiv:2602.06652v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: The robustness of Vision Language Models (VLMs) is commonly assessed through output-level invariance, implicitly assuming that stable predictions r...

By Farooq Ahmad Wani, Alessandro Suglia, Rohit Saxena, Aryo Pradipta Gema, Wai-Chung Kwan, Fazl Barez, Maria Sofia Bucarelli, Fabrizio Silvestri, Pasquale Minervini
arXiv Computer Vision
Aug 24

Continual Test-Time Adaptation in Computer Vision: Methods, Benchmarks, and Future Directions

The paper surveys Continual Test-Time Adaptation (CTTA), a framework that adapts pretrained computer‑vision models to non‑stationary target distributions without source data or labeled targets, while avoiding catastrophic forgetting and error accumulation. It formally defines the CTTA problem, categorizes existing methods into optimization‑based, parameter‑efficient, and architecture‑based families, and reviews representative techniques and benchmarks across standard evaluation settings. The survey also outlines current limitations and proposes future research directions, such as adapting foundation models and black‑box systems.

By Sarthak Kumar Maharana, Shambhavi Mishra, Yunbei Zhang, Shuaicheng Niu, Taki Hasan Rafi, Jihun Hamm, Marco Pedersoli, Jose Dolz, Yunhui Guo
arXiv Computer Vision
Aug 26

Variance-Guided Spatial Attention Fusion for Robust End-to-End Driving under Asymmetric Sensor Degradation

The paper introduces Variance‑Guided Spatial Attention Fusion (VG‑SAF), a method for robust end‑to‑end driving that fuses camera and LiDAR data while handling asymmetric sensor degradation. VG‑SAF uses a physically grounded augmentor to generate dense reliability masks, modality‑specific experts to predict per‑pixel reliability scales, and a hybrid attention mechanism that gates unreliable cells and balances modalities. The approach also includes a Laplace uncertainty head to signal severe or combined sensor failures, and demonstrates improved closed‑loop robustness on the CARLA Longest6 benchmark across various degradation scenarios.

By Weizhi Tao, Zengwang Jin, Xiao Wang, Hailong Huang
arXiv Computer Vision
Sep 7

FailureSpot: Label-Efficient Timestamp-Level Failure Detection for Vision-Language-Action Models

The paper introduces FailureSpot, a label‑efficient method for detecting failures at the timestamp level in vision‑language‑action (VLA) policies. It first generates weak supervision from unlabeled VLA action chunks by identifying abnormal patterns, then employs active learning to annotate only the most uncertain trajectories. Experiments on multiple VLA policies demonstrate improved performance for both timestamp‑level and trajectory‑level failure detection.

By Jie Ma, Zongxi Liu, Yi Zhu
arXiv Machine Learning
Jul 2

Information-Regularized Attention for Visual-Centric Reasoning

arXiv:2607. 00434v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Vision-language models (VLMs) have become a paradigm for multimodal learning, yet remain unstable due to object hallucination, weak visual grounding, and catastrophic forgetting after full-parameter instruction tuning.

By Guohao Sun, Xiaofang Wang, Yash Patel, Mengchen Liu, Zhiqiang Tao, Praveen Krishnan