arXiv AI By Sizhe Chen, Sanjay Kariyappa, Liwei Jiang, Chong Xiang, Jihye Choi, Chaowei Xiao, G. Edward Suh

Improving Instruction Hierarchy by Learning from Goal-Goal Conflicts

Read the original on arXiv AI →

The paper discusses how instruction hierarchy (IH) can be improved by training large language models on simulated instruction conflicts, particularly a newly identified type called goal‑goal conflicts. By fine‑tuning Qwen3.5‑9B and Gemma4‑12B‑it on examples of these conflicts, the authors demonstrate significant gains in IH performance across a variety of real‑world tasks, while maintaining negligible impact on non‑conflict tasks. The study suggests that incorporating goal‑goal conflicts into IH training sets can enhance model adherence to higher‑priority instructions.

Machine-generated by The Flow from the publisher's headline and feed description — not written or checked by a human. The full article lives at arXiv AI.

arXiv Computation and Language
Sep 1

S3Gym: Can LLMs Turn Self-Testing and Self-Judging into Self-Improvement?

S3Gym is an interactive benchmark designed to evaluate large language models (LLMs) on their ability to self-improve through self-testing, self-judging, and self-improvement. It separates permissive exploration from strict held-out evaluation across seven text-based games with executable environment verifiers. Experiments show that self-improvement varies by task, with different experience incorporation pathways (direct history, summary memory, or parameter training) yielding mixed results and highlighting the need for agents to transform feedback into executable, transferable policies.

By Jiajun Shi, Siyuan Tao, Yuhao Wu, Zexuan Wang, Jingyuan Zhang, Jiaheng Liu, Xinping Lei, Xinrong Zhang, Siyuan Fang, Zhewen Tan, Tianle Cai, Junhao Fang, Jiameng Huang, Yueyang Wang, Jinkai Liu, Yuxuan Zhang, Jian Yang, Zhoujun Li, Shen Yan, Wenhao Huang, Ge Zhang
arXiv AI
Aug 25

CONTRAMEM: Learning Self-Evolving Procedural Memory from Contrasting Multi-Model Trajectories

arXiv:2608.22533v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Autonomous computer-use agents are increasingly applied to long-horizon tasks requiring coordinated application calls, persistent state tracking, and v...

By Zheyuan Deng, Binghang Lu, Hanqi Feng, Shirley Huang, Dianzhuo Wang, Yuanda Xu, Zhiwei Zhang, Yige Sun, Changhong Mou, Runyu Zhang, Yuexing Hao, Barnabas Poczos, Xiaomin Li
arXiv AI
Oct 28

EMMA: Structured Episodic Memory for Multi-Agent Workflow Synthesis

EMMA is a framework that treats the configuration of a multi‑agent system—controller routing, specialist prompts, and procedural skills—as structured episodic memory. It explicitly assigns ownership and limits updates through a reflector and backbone‑independent guards, ensuring edits are scoped, incremental, and bounded. Experiments on KramaBench, AppWorld, and BBEH show EMMA outperforms four baselines, achieving up to 32.5% higher performance and reducing training executions by 17–38%.

By Ruijia Niu, Kaiwen Liu, Rose Yu, Kristina Klinkner
arXiv AI
Jul 14

AgentAbstain: Do LLM Agents Know When Not to Act?

arXiv:2607. 10059v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Agent systems based on large language models (LLMs) are increasingly deployed for autonomous tasks, yet existing evaluations mostly focus on task success rather than whether agents know when to abstain.

By Xun Liu, Yi Evie Zhang, Vira Kasprova, Parisa Rabbani, Pardis Sadat Zahraei, Tianyu Zhang, Ali Ebrahimpour-Boroojeny, Varun Chandrasekaran