Papers for

interactive system developers

Papers whose findings have a practical use for this group, as judged from the abstract. Open a paper to read what it means in practice.

Small language models improve user behavior prediction on video platforms

OmniSimulator: Aligning Small Language Models for Authentic Heterogeneous Behavior Modeling

Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) have shown great potential as general-purpose user simulators for interactive systems. Prior studies have demonstrated that training on high-quality data can substantially improve model reasoning and downstream task performance. However, the upper bound of user simulation is still constrained by the model's reasoning paradigm: native chain-of-thought often degenerates into shallow pattern matching and fails to adequately model the behavioral factors underlying real user decisions. In this paper, we propose OmniSimulator, a novel training framework designed to improve the predictive ability of small LLMs for realistic user simulation on short-video platform environments. Specifically, OmniSimulator organizes behavior-oriented reasoning through a structured schema with five dimensions, carefully selects data from real user-behavior scenarios, and introduces a teacher model to generate high-quality reasoning traces under the proposed schema, helping small models learn behavior-relevant reasoning patterns rather than relying on superficial behavioral correlations. Based on this process, we construct 9,881 high-quality training instances from three months of historical interaction trajectories of 200 real users, averaging about 50 distilled examples per user. Experimental results show that OmniSimulator improves the average score of Qwen3-8B by 34.33%, achieves performance competitive with Claude-Sonnet-4.5, and supports smaller-scale, self-hosted deployment. These results suggest that learning structured behavior-oriented reasoning patterns is a promising direction towards scalable and high-fidelity LLM-based user simulation.

Wed 21 OctComputation and LanguageArtificial IntelligenceMachine Learning
The gist
Simulating how real users behave online is hard, especially with smaller AI models that often just guess patterns. The authors propose OmniSimulator, a new way to teach smaller language models to better predict real user choices by showing them detailed, structured reasoning from real user data. This method helps the models think more about why users act certain ways rather than just copying surface-level patterns. Tests show that these smaller models get much better at mimicking user behavior, reaching performance close to larger, more complex models but easier to run on modest computers.
Open → 2610.29472v1

New parameter defines sample needs for multiclass learning with query feedback

PAC Learning with Query Feedback

Abstract: We study realizable multiclass PAC learning with query feedback, where each training example provides a single binary response indicating whether its true label belongs to a chosen subset from a fixed query family. Our main contribution is the query dimension, a combinatorial parameter that captures both the structure of the hypothesis class and the ability of the available queries to distinguish labels. This parameter generalizes the bandit DS dimension, which it recovers under singleton queries. We establish a sample-complexity lower bound of $Ω(D/\varepsilon)$ and an upper bound of $\widetilde{O}(D^2/\varepsilon)$, suppressing factors polylogarithmic in the number of labels and the failure probability. When the available queries can split every candidate set into two parts of comparable size, we improve the upper bound to $\widetilde{O}(D/\varepsilon)$, yielding a characterization up to logarithmic factors.

Fri 16 OctMachine Learning
The gist
This paper looks at how computers can learn to label things correctly when they only get yes-or-no answers about groups of possible labels instead of the exact label. The authors introduce the "query dimension," a new way to measure how hard this learning problem is based on both the possible labels and the questions asked. They show that the number of examples needed to learn well depends on this query dimension, giving both lower and upper bounds on the amount of data required. Their results also improve when the questions can split the set of possible labels into fairly even halves, making learning more efficient.
Open → 2610.24332v1

Turbo harness optimizes task execution models for each instance

Turbo Harness: Instance-Adaptive Harness Optimization

Abstract: Automating the search for effective harnesses is an important step toward enabling agents to recursively self-improve. Existing harness optimizations typically produce a single global harness that is applied uniformly across task instances. However, a harness that works well on average may not be optimal for every instance. We introduce Turbo Harness, a framework that can adapt a globally optimized harness to each instance by reusing information generated during the original optimization process. Specifically, Turbo Harness recycles artifacts produced during a completed global harness optimization run, and summarizes them into a structured playbook. We train a harness editor to leverage this prior optimization experience to generate instance-specific patches to the global harness. At inference time, the editor uses the instance and the playbook to construct a tailored harness in which the execution model operates. Through numerical experiments, we show that Turbo Harness consistently outperforms existing harness optimization baselines across seven benchmarks spanning interactive agent tasks, software engineering, and long-horizon terminal tasks.

Wed 30 SeptArtificial Intelligence
The gist
Finding a single best setup to solve many different tasks can be hard because what works well on average might not be best for every situation. The authors introduce Turbo Harness, a way to start with a good general setup and then tweak it for each specific task using lessons learned from earlier attempts. Turbo Harness creates a guide to these lessons and uses it to fix the general setup so it fits each new task better. Tests show this method does better than older approaches across various tasks that involve interacting with systems and long-term problem solving.
Open → 2609.40330v1

Logic describes how repeated announcements change truth over time

Eventual and Strong Eventual Notions in Public Announcements

Abstract: In dynamic epistemic logic, the four notions of success, self-refutation, true lies, and impossible lies have been discussed in the context of public announcements. In this paper, we introduce eventual and strong eventual versions of these notions, as well as their transfinite versions, which allow transfinite iteration of announcements. We also introduce the notions of always informativeness when true or false. For example, a formula is eventually self-refuting if, whenever initially true, it eventually becomes false at some finite stage under iterated announcements, and strong eventual self-refutation further requires the formula to remain false at all sufficiently late stages. There are two main results. The first result gives the relationship among strong eventual notions, eventual notions, and several other conditions including conditions on the limit of the truth values of the announced formula, the uniform bound condition, and the fixed-point views of the Moore sentence and the self-fulfilling sentence. The second result gives the relationship among finite and transfinite versions of the eventual and strong eventual notions and the fixed-point views.

Mon 21 SeptLogic in Computer ScienceMultiagent Systems
The gist
Some statements can change their truth value when announced publicly, sometimes becoming false after being true or vice versa. This paper explores new ways to understand what happens when announcements happen again and again, even infinitely many times. The authors study conditions where statements eventually settle into being true or false, and how fast this happens. They connect these ideas to well-known logical puzzles and show how different versions of these changes relate to each other.
Open → 2609.24006v1

Elicitive user interfaces help users shape personalized generative interfaces

Elicitive User Interfaces: Designing How Users Shape Generative Interfaces

Abstract: Generative user interfaces (GenUI) promise personalized interfaces to a user's tasks and needs. However, user needs are often implicit---difficult for systems to infer and users to articulate, making it hard for users to arrive at their ideal interface. We propose Elicitive User Interfaces, a design approach to GenUI that generates elicitation techniques as part of the interface itself. Elicitive UIs adapt these techniques to the user, task, and interface to draw out user preferences. To guide the design of Elicitive UIs, we synthesize a six-axis design space that shapes how an interface elicits user preferences. Across two user studies with a design probe, we found that while Elicitive UIs surfaced preferences users had not already formed, and that responses to elicitation varied more across users than across tasks. Users developed more consistent preferences for how they wanted to be elicited, suggesting an opportunity to personalize elicitation itself.

Sun 20 SeptHuman-Computer Interaction
The gist
Many computer systems try to create personalized interfaces, but people often have trouble explaining what they want. The authors propose a new way where the interface itself asks questions or uses techniques to help users discover and share their preferences. They developed a framework describing different ways to ask these questions and tested it with people. Their studies showed that users often found new preferences they hadn’t thought of and that people preferred different ways of being asked, suggesting the way the system asks questions should be personalized too.
Open → 2609.23642v1