PaperGym is a framework that transforms each research paper into a training environment for AI research planning, using rubrics extracted from the paper’s method and experiments as a critic. It synthesizes research questions from the goal and background, and derives evaluation criteria from the method and experiments, reducing criterion leakage to 3.7%. Experiments with Qwen models show that training with PaperGym’s rubric improves benchmark performance by up to 5.6 points and outperforms existing datasets and fine‑tuning baselines.
arXiv:2608. 09123v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Aligning Large Language Models (LLMs) for open-ended tasks is challenging because responses must satisfy multidimensional criteria without following a single correct generation trajectory.
The paper introduces Recursive Reward Improvement (RRI), a method that enhances recursive self‑improvement loops by using an adversary to expose and fix weaknesses in model‑generated rubrics for open‑ended tasks. In RRI, an adversary crafts a rubric‑gaming answer, an honest answer is generated without rubric exposure, and up to two repair steps adjust the rubric so the honest answer scores higher. Experiments on HealthBench Professional show that RRI boosts adjusted scores by up to 12.4 points on a 27B model and yields significant gains on difficult and writing tasks, while also improving performance on unseen benchmarks PRBench Hard and ProfBench.
The paper introduces a method for training large language models to generate diverse, high‑quality scientific ideas grounded in input documents. By using a set‑level reinforcement learning objective that rewards ideas for being distinct from earlier ones, the authors train an 8B model that outperforms Claude Opus 4.8 and GPT‑6 Astra on a contamination‑free benchmark. Human experts rate the model’s idea sets as equally promising while containing slightly more unique ideas, and automated experiments show comparable executability.
EvoRubric introduces a co‑evolutionary reinforcement learning framework that learns rubric‑driven evaluation criteria for open‑ended text generation. The system uses a shared policy that simultaneously generates responses and rubrics, while a frozen meta‑verifier and grader provide validity checks and scoring. Experiments on medical, writing, and science benchmarks show that EvoRubric outperforms static and other evolving‑rubric baselines, achieving higher average scores on five tasks.
The paper investigates reflective prompt optimization (GEPA) for a multi‑agent deep‑research language‑model, focusing on a topic‑disjoint train/validation/test split to avoid memorization. Across three random seeds, the optimized prompts improve held‑out citation reward from 0.702 to 0.781, with a 95% confidence interval of [0.051, 0.107]. The study shows that the gain is driven by decomposed per‑dimension feedback rather than a single scalar reward, and that the improvement persists even with an out‑of‑family verifier and a hand‑written version of the discovered recipe.
arXiv:2607. 28631v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: AI Scientist systems capable of autonomous research have the potential to significantly accelerate scientific discovery.
Autonomous scientific research agents are increasingly applied to end-to-end scientific workflows, including literature review, data analysis, experimentation, and report generation. However, open-end...
arXiv:2606. 25198v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Autonomous AI Research promises to accelerate the scientific progress of machine learning.
AdaTutoRank introduces a setwise document reranker that uses Adaptive Tutoring Optimization (ATO) to provide graded supervision across nine rubric dimensions. By generating hint‑based silver labels, reinforcement rewards, and distillation cues tailored to each rollout’s quality, the method improves credit assignment for individual documents within a set. Experiments on ten benchmarks covering Retrieval‑Augmented Generation (RAG), deep research, and setwise evaluation show that AdaTutoRank achieves superior overall performance while reducing the number of retrieval calls.
arXiv:2606.17029v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Deep research agents synthesize long-form reports by searching and reasoning over retrieved evidence. Reinforcement learning with rubric-based rewa...
arXiv:2608.31076v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Autonomous scientific research agents are increasingly applied to end-to-end scientific workflows, including literature review, data analysis, experi...
arXiv:2606. 09052v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Self-evolution offers a scalable path to stronger reasoning: a pretrained language model improves itself with only minimal external supervision.