arXiv Machine Learning

Targeted search shows that random-device testing underestimates worst-case error in a simulated wave-based neural operator

arXiv:2610. 07529v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Wave-based processors promise fast, energy-efficient Fourier layers for neural operators.

arXiv AI
Sep 17

The Inference Engineering Pareto Atlas: Which Optimizations Dominate the Cost, Quality, and Latency Frontier?

The paper presents a Pareto atlas of LLM inference optimizations, mapping cost, quality, and latency trade‑offs for Qwen2.5‑7B‑Instruct on L4, A100, and H100 GPUs. Using 54 measured configurations and a calibrated simulator, it identifies 18 of 36 setups on the Pareto frontier, showing that combined methods outperform single ones. Quality tests reveal that AWQ 4bit and FP8 weights offer significant latency reductions while largely preserving accuracy, but naive FP8 KV caching fails to answer any questions correctly.

By Srikanta Datta Tumkur, Jay Iyer, Mehar Simhadri, Sai Pavan Kumar, Sai Kapil Kumar, Ramesh Nampelly
arXiv Machine Learning
Oct 23

Scaling Laws for Safety Probes

The paper introduces two scaling laws that predict the performance of safety probes—tools used to monitor language models for harmful behavior—based on model size and the number of labeled examples. By creating six large safety datasets and training probes across multiple model families, the authors show that probe error decreases as a power law with model size and further improves with more examples, with the improvement rate increasing for larger models. These laws enable researchers to forecast probe accuracy and decide whether to invest in more data or a larger model to achieve a desired error threshold.

By Yuchen Wu (University of Washington), Jerry Wei (Anthropic)
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 4

RACE-AIMC: Selective Inference for Heterogeneous Analog In-Memory Accelerators at the Edge

RACE-AIMC is a framework that selects a single analog in‑memory computing (AIMC) accelerator from a pool to meet a specified energy budget while providing a mathematically exact upper bound on its error rate. Offline, it evaluates each chip, chooses the best one, and computes the bound; online, only that chip runs and a lightweight check decides whether to accept its output or defer to a fallback. Simulations show the certified error stays below 10% (mean 7.83%) and the system achieves clean‑digital accuracy while reducing energy use by about 69% compared to running all chips.

By Osama Yousuf, Martin Lueker-Boden
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 18

Sample Count Is Not Enough: Candidate-Generation Strategy Shapes the Energy and Performance of LLM Test-Time Scaling

The paper demonstrates that the number of candidates generated during test-time scaling of large language models does not fully capture the system cost. By comparing different generation schedules (e.g., one batched call versus multiple serial calls) while keeping the total candidate count fixed, the authors show that serial calls consume significantly more GPU energy and latency. The study suggests that reporting candidate count alone is insufficient; evaluations should also include generation schedule and GPU-level metrics.

By Mobina Kashaniyan, Ali Jannesari
arXiv AI
Jun 29

When Is an LLM Worth It for Hyperparameter Optimization? A Budget-Matched Study on Tabular Data Finds the Warm-Start Is a Default Configuration, Not the Model

arXiv:2606. 21641v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) have been proposed as hyperparameter-optimization (HPO) advisors that "warm-start" search from prior knowledge, proposing strong configurations in very few evaluations.

By Carson Rodrigues, Oysturn Vas, Isaiah Abner DCosta, Nithish Kumar Prabhakaran
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 22

Perplexity Cost Understates What Activation Quantisation Breaks

The paper investigates how activation quantisation affects different computational aspects of language models. While perplexity remains a reliable overall metric, it fails to reveal that induction accuracy stays high while retrieval accuracy drops significantly. Experiments show that the damage depends on more than just error magnitude, and that rotating the basis can recover induction performance even at low bit‑rates.

By Anish Sathyanarayanan