arXiv AI

RecourseBench: A Modular Framework for Reproducible Algorithmic Recourse Evaluation

arXiv:2606. 16113v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Algorithmic recourse methods provide counterfactual explanations that inform individuals of the actions required to overturn an unfavorable model decision.

arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 14

Explanations-Driven Active Feature Acquisition for Algorithmic Recourse

The paper introduces Explanation-Driven Feature Acquisition (EDFA), a method that jointly optimizes algorithmic recourse and feature acquisition by selecting features based on explanatory value per unit cost. Using Markov Blanket theory, EDFA unifies various explanation types and provides distribution‑free validity guarantees for recourse derived from partial information. Experiments on seven datasets show that EDFA requires fewer features than existing active feature acquisition baselines while maintaining accuracy and producing more actionable recourse.

By Vinura Galwaduge, Jagath Samarabandu
arXiv AI
4d ago

From Dead Code and Static Requirements to Working Engines: Software Revival with Coding Agents

The paper introduces ReviveBench, a benchmark designed to evaluate coding agents’ ability to revive non‑running software and reconstruct industrial engines from open specifications. It comprises two families of tasks—revival (ten tasks addressing dependency issues, missing modules, legacy builds, and GPU models) and reconstruction (thirteen tasks covering numerical, geometric, hardware, and transactional systems). The benchmark uses hidden verifiers calibrated against native environments, engineering tools, or reference implementations, and the authors report that the strongest evaluated model passes all revival tasks and most reconstruction tasks, while also uncovering verifier defects that highlight measurement error in executable verification.

By Tianyu Liu, Dingyuan Dai, Yufan Du, Zhen Yang
arXiv AI
Aug 24

No Judgment Without a Reason: Counterfactual Receipts for Versioned AI Evaluators

The paper introduces a framework for evaluating AI systems that not only checks final labels but also tracks the reasoning behind them through three core sources—grounds, norms, and authority—forming an eight-cell counterfactual judgment cube. It defines minimal source replacement sets, called judgment receipts, to explain changes in verdicts and provides certification cost bounds for black-box evaluators. The authors present ReasonBench, a benchmark with 19,520 cases, and demonstrate that while high standard accuracy can mask robustness issues, receipt accuracy reveals significant gaps in reasoning consistency across different models.

By Ye Chen, Weining Zhang
arXiv AI
Aug 26

REFINE: A Multi-Agent LLM Approach for Evidence-Guided Code Refactoring

REFINE is a tool-agnostic, evidence-aware multi-agent approach that generates Java file-level refactoring candidates by combining static analysis, smell-informed planning, LLM-based transformation, and automated re-analysis. In experiments on 450 Java files from 15 open-source systems, REFINE reduced detected code smells by 68–73% across three LLM configurations, achieving higher median reductions with smaller edits compared to a direct-prompt baseline. However, the tool’s outputs still pose risks such as assert/fail-call changes and public-method removal, requiring compilation, testing, dependency analysis, and human review before deployment.

By Muhammad Waseem, Aakash Ahmad, Pekka Abrahamsson
arXiv AI
6d ago

Robust to Which Model Change? A Unified Evaluation of Robust Counterfactual Explanations

The paper introduces a unified evaluation protocol for robust counterfactual explanations (CFE), testing six robust methods and two baselines across four tabular datasets under eight types of model change. It shows that robustness scores vary by change type and that methods designed for one change family may not transfer to others, with RobX performing most consistently. The study emphasizes the need for a common protocol that defines model changes, measures their impact, and separates generation performance from robustness.

By Marcin Kostrzewa, Maciej Zi\k{e}ba
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 10

RubricRefine: Improving Tool-Use Agent Reliability with Training-Free Pre-Execution Refinement

RubricRefine is a training‑free pre‑execution refinement method that generates task‑specific rubrics from tool documentation, scores candidate code against explicit contract checks, and iteratively repairs failures before execution. It achieves an average score of 0.86 across seven models on M3ToolEval without any execution attempts, outperforming prior inference‑time baselines while incurring lower latency. The approach shows consistent performance on single‑step API‑Bank tasks and maintains an advantage in multi‑turn settings on AppWorld, with its effectiveness tied to the quality of the supplied documentation.

By Will LeVine, Brendan Evers, Sam Saltwick, Abhay Venkatesh