ZeroHour

Search: “continual learning”

464 stories

Learning never stops: How AI makes learning continuous

OpenAI report describes how students and educators use ChatGPT to extend learning continuously beyond the classroom.

OpenAI published a report examining how students and educators use ChatGPT to make learning more continuous. The report describes support that extends beyond the classroom, positioning ChatGPT as an ongoing learning companion. The release is part of OpenAI's education-focused communications rather than a technical or safety research paper.

OpenAI News · 21d agoAI industry

Continual Learning Mechanisms Compose for Long-Horizon Memorization

Composing data, function, and weight anchors with merged LoRA raises 100-task long-horizon retention from 1.2% to 34.9% in continual fine-tuning.

The paper introduces long-horizon memorization: a model learns 100 query-answer tasks through continual supervised fine-tuning without retaining earlier examples or receiving task identifiers at inference. No single continual learning mechanism maintains strong retention at this horizon, so the authors compose complementary mechanisms along data/function/weight anchors and low-rank allocation rules. The best method combining all three anchors with merged LoRA ranks among the top 3 methods on all three datasets and raises average final retention from 1.2% to 34.9%, a 28-fold improvement.

Hugging Face daily papers · 9d agoAI research

Domain-Incremental Learning for Multi-Channel Replay Speech Detection

First continual learning benchmark for multi-channel replay speech detection shows task-specific beamforming cuts catastrophic forgetting across 24 acoustic environments.

Researchers frame replay-attack detection for voice-controlled systems as domain-incremental learning over acoustic environments, evaluating a beamformer-based detector across all 24 environment orderings of the ReMASC corpus with five seeds. Naive sequential fine-tuning raises error rates on previously learned environments by 18.8 points, while elastic weight consolidation halves forgetting but loses plasticity and gradient projection memory is statistically indistinguishable from naive fine-tuning. A task-specific beamformer keeping one spatial front-end per environment significantly improves final and incremental accuracy, and the last environment in a sequence dominates final performance.

arXiv cs.CR · 6d agoResearch1

ScienceBuddy: Recursive-in-Recursive Self-Improvement for Interactive Scientific Agents

ScienceBuddy released: interactive scientific agent workspace coupling harness evolution with model reinforcement learning for continual self-improvement across four scientific task families.

ScienceBuddy is an interactive scientific research workspace that turns researcher requests, feedback, and execution evidence into tasks and evaluation rubrics for continual learning. Its recursive-in-recursive self-improvement paradigm couples harness evolution with the model fixed (inner recursion) and model reinforcement learning under the improved harness (outer recursion). Case studies span four scientific task families covering researcher interaction, harness refinement, and model learning. The system is released as a research product at science-buddy.io.

Hugging Face daily papersupdated · 1d agofirst · 1d agoAI research 2 sources

Implementing a White-Box Undetectable Backdoor for Random Fourier Features

Researchers implement Goldwasser's CLWE-based undetectable backdoor for Random Fourier Features models in numpy/scipy, confirming practical realizability with no detectable differences from clean models.

The paper provides an end-to-end implementation of the Goldwasser et al. white-box undetectable backdoor for models trained with the Random Fourier Features algorithm, using only numpy and scipy. It derives two samplers for the core GP_d(b_k) distribution: a rejection-sampling proxy and an exact closed-form sampler verified against its analytic form. Statistical indistinguishability tests covering weight-space and functional black-box comparisons found no detectable difference between backdoored and clean models across sparsity ratios. The underlying lattice hardness reduction was not reproduced, and the work demonstrates the threat is realizable with commodity scientific-computing tools rather than specialized cryptographic infrastructure.

arXiv cs.CR · 1d agoResearch

[AINews] GPT-6 Astra: OpenAI’s biggest LLM launch of all time

OpenAI launched GPT-6 Astra, its new flagship model, claiming state-of-the-art computer use, software engineering, math, and cybersecurity capabilities.

OpenAI launched GPT-6 Astra as its new flagship model, describing it as its most intelligent and aligned model with state-of-the-art computer use, software engineering, and math/science capabilities. Pricing is $10/$50 per 1M input/output tokens standard ($20/$100 fast tier), rolling out first to limited organizations, then ChatGPT Plus/Pro/Business/Enterprise, the API, and AWS. OpenAI claims 99.9% on ARC-AGI-3, 98% on FrontierMath Tier 4, and 100% on ExploitBench. Artificial Analysis scored Astra 67 on the Coding Agent Index and 61 on the Intelligence Index, behind Claude Fable 5.1, and the system card drew attention for reporting decreased chain-of-thought monitorability despite alignment gains.

Latent Space · 12d agoModel release3

[AINews] Poolside gets $12B reverse-execuhire to NVIDIA; founders stay for $1B, employees go for $6B, Infraco scaling to 7GW neocloud

NVIDIA struck a $12B deal with AI coding startup Poolside, licensing its Model Factory and hiring 109 of its technical employees.

NVIDIA spent roughly $12B in an unusual reverse-execuhire of Poolside, licensing the company's Model Factory while hiring 109 of its ~115 technical staff; founders retain a $1B stake and employees receive about $6B. Poolside had raced to raise $2B to fund a 40,000 GB300 cluster after missing a six-week funding window, and founders argue frontier-scale training now requires an order of magnitude more compute plus contracted data center space. An infrastructure arm spun out in January 2026 is scaling toward 7GW as a neocloud. The newsletter also recaps OpenAI and Anthropic agent-platform releases.

Latent Space · 26d agoAI industry

How to level up from security pro to security leader

Career advice piece argues aspiring CISOs must pair technical depth with business fluency, communication, and cross-department influence.

The article offers guidance for security professionals moving into CISO and security leadership roles, drawing on interviews with CISOs at ExtraHop, BlueVoyant, Infosys, and others. It emphasizes translating technical risk into business priorities, building trust across departments, and understanding how the company makes money. An analysis of CISO job postings found employers value communication skills, regulatory knowledge, and business education over mastery of specific security platforms.

CSO Online · 2d agoIndustry

Getting ahead of ‘harvest-now-decrypt-later’: Post-quantum cryptography planning

Opinion piece urges organizations to begin post-quantum cryptography migration now, citing harvest-now-decrypt-later risk and NIST deadlines.

CSO Online outlines why harvest-now-decrypt-later makes long-lived sensitive data a current risk even before quantum computers exist. It cites NIST IR 8547 timelines deprecating RSA-2048 and ECC P-256 by 2030 and removing them by 2035, finalized FIPS standards ML-KEM, ML-DSA, and SLH-DSA, upcoming FN-DSA (FIPS 206), NSA requirements for national security systems from 2027, and UK NCSC phased guidance through 2035. The author recommends cryptographic discovery, crypto-agility, and prioritizing long-confidentiality data and TLS endpoints.

CSO Online · 6d agoResearch

When Agents Slow Down: Understanding LLM Agents' Test-Time Strategies via Elo-per-token Analysis

Elo-per-token analysis shows LLM agents' marginal gains drop below independent sampling at scale; parallel sessions beat one long session.

The paper proposes Elo-per-token analysis, using a Bradley-Terry model to measure how agent performance scales with token budget on open-ended tasks with continuous scoring. Across four agents and four benchmarks with sessions up to 100M tokens, agents initially convert tokens to Elo faster than independent sampling but eventually slow below the linear-in-log-compute reference. The authors define a scaling inflection point and show that splitting 100M tokens across parallel sessions on FrontierCS Polyomino Packing gains +264 Elo over one long session and +355 over ten short sessions. Human contestants on shared AtCoder Heuristic Contest tasks improve superlinearly, indicating headroom over current agents.

Hugging Face daily papers · 2d agoAI research3· 2 reads

Gartner: 70% of SOCs will pilot AI agents. Only 15% will see results

Gartner predicts 70% of large SOCs will pilot AI agents by 2028, but only 15% will achieve measurable improvements.

A Gartner report by analysts Craig Lawson and Andrew Davies projects that by 2028, 70% of large SOCs will pilot AI agents for Tier 1 and Tier 2 operations, but only 15% will achieve measurable improvements without structured evaluation. Prophet Security's State of AI in Security Operations 2026 survey found 40% of security teams use AI daily and 56% are evaluating or piloting it. The report offers evaluation questions covering workload reduction, TDIR outcomes, vendor viability, analyst upskilling, and autonomy boundaries to counter AI washing in the market.

Help Net Security · 7d agoIndustry

Embedded Graph Flows for Categorical Graph Generation

Researchers propose Embedded Graph Flows, a generative model with learned categorical embeddings that beats DiGress and GruM on molecular graph benchmarks.

Embedded Graph Flows (EGF) learns continuous embeddings for node and unordered-edge categories and transports Gaussian noise toward these endpoints using a permutation-equivariant graph transformer. On QM9 it achieves the best result on all four reported metrics, with a Fréchet ChemNet Distance of 0.150 versus 0.717 for DiGress and 0.812 for GruM. On ZINC250k it retains the lowest NSPDK MMD, indicating close agreement with local substructures of reference molecules. Code is released on GitHub.

arXiv cs.AI / cs.LG / cs.CL · 12d agoAI research1

EVOHARNESSBENCH: Can Your Agents Keep Pace with an Evolving Harness?

Researchers introduce EVOHARNESSBENCH, a benchmark showing that evolving agent harnesses (tools, skills, agents) cause forgetting and inconsistent adaptation across 802 tasks.

The paper introduces EVOHARNESSBENCH, a benchmark that places non-stationarity in the externally supplied agent harness rather than in the task stream, evaluating agents across tools, skills, and specialist agents. It comprises 17 multi-stage harness streams built deterministically from verifier-based benchmarks, totaling 802 tasks, 520 tools, 42 skills, and 62 agents. Evaluation covers deployment (retention of previously accessible competence) and self-evolving adaptation settings. Results show harness expansion alone degrades previously solved tasks (harness-induced forgetting), adaptation gains are inconsistent, and retention and adaptation can pull in opposite directions.

Hugging Face daily papers · 13d agoAI research

X's Algorithm Feeds Off Ragebait and Impacts Democrats More, Study Finds

A PNAS study of 715 X users finds the platform's engagement-optimizing algorithm amplifies value-misaligned ragebait, affecting self-identified Democrats more.

A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences used browser extension data from 715 U.S. X users, recruited in September and October 2024, to compare self-reported values with the content the For You feed amplified. It found that replying to posts—only 6.8% of observed interactions—disproportionately shapes the engagement-optimizing algorithm, creating runaway feedback loops of value-misaligned ragebait that were more pronounced for self-identified Democrats. Co-author Ziv Epstein, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University, said the observational work is intended to spur debate on algorithm transparency and user control over feeds.

404 Media · 29d agoAI safety & security

Hunting Vulnerabilities Using Frontier Models

Okta used frontier AI models GPT-5.5 Cyber and Mythos via OpenAI and Anthropic programs to scan millions of code lines for vulnerabilities.

Okta describes using frontier AI models, including GPT-5.5 Cyber Preview (TAC) and Mythos Preview, through OpenAI's Daybreak Cyber Partner Program and Anthropic's Project Glasswing to hunt vulnerabilities across its product codebase. The team built a custom Python orchestrator with strong isolation, vendor-agnostic model support, and four distinct scanning pipelines executed as isolated Codex or Claude Code sessions with progressive context loading to reduce context bloat. Human experts and AI agents worked both autonomously and in paired hunts, and Okta reports the best results when humans and agents taught each other.

Okta Security · 8d agoResearch

F5 speeds up virtual patching to counter AI-driven threats

F5 added anomaly detection and agentic threat intelligence to its AI-powered WAF, enabling virtual patch enforcement against exploits within minutes.

F5 announced enhancements to F5 WAF for Distributed Cloud, adding anomaly detection that builds per-application traffic baselines and agentic threat intelligence built on technology from the Fletch acquisition. The AI-powered WAF scores each request in real time with a neural network risk engine, and internal testing claims 98% threat detection efficacy with false positives reduced to 1%. Automated virtual patching via Distributed Cloud Web App Scanning extends to F5 WAF for BIG-IP, letting teams block actively exploited vulnerabilities at the request level in minutes; agentic features are rolling out over coming months.

Help Net Security · 14d agoTools

Variational Continuation for Double Pendulum Periodic Orbits

Researchers introduce a Hessian-based, integrator-free method using automatic differentiation to continue periodic orbits in the double pendulum, uncovering previously unreported orbit families.

A new arXiv paper presents a variational, Hessian-based framework for numerically continuing periodic orbits in dynamical systems, parametrizing candidate loops as Fourier series and minimizing deviation from the governing differential equations. Automatic differentiation replaces hand-derived Jacobians, and flat directions of the loss landscape guide the continuation search. The method is demonstrated on the double pendulum, mapping bifurcations along orbit families, including periodic orbits where neither pendulum mass is ever simultaneously at rest.

arXiv cs.AI / cs.LG / cs.CL · 12d agoAI research

Diffusion Models and Concept Formation

Paper argues diffusion models implicitly form Cobweb-like concept hierarchies, with a basic level emerging at intermediate noise levels.

The authors draw a formal correspondence between diffusion models and Cobweb, a classic incremental concept-hierarchy learner, noting both are hierarchical Bayesian density models with Gaussian prototypes. Modes of the diffusion model's noisy marginals form a hierarchy whose basic level sits at intermediate noise, where class identity commits. The correspondence is tested on MNIST and Fashion-MNIST via mode-finding. Diffusion is reframed as a cognitive model of concept formation.

arXiv cs.AI / cs.LG / cs.CL · 5d agoAI research

Virtual Event Today: Attack Surface Management Summit

SecurityWeek's 2026 Attack Surface Management Summit runs today as a virtual event covering asset discovery, SBOMs, red teaming, and pen-testing.

SecurityWeek is hosting its fully virtual 2026 Attack Surface Management Summit from 11AM-3PM, focused on continuous asset discovery, prioritization, and risk reduction. Sessions cover proving exploitability, SBOM and AIBOM software supply chain risk with Dr. Allan Friedman, demos from Wiz and Horizon3's NodeZero, and the roles of red teaming, bug bounty, and penetration testing in enterprise defense.

SecurityWeek · 3h agoIndustry

Knowledge Retention & Sharing in DF/IR

DFIR veteran reflects on knowledge retention and sharing gaps across the industry, from EnCase training to PCI forensics workflows.

A personal essay recounts decades in digital forensics and incident response, arguing the industry rarely moves beyond individual or tribal knowledge to operationalize lessons learned. Examples include building condition files and custom EnScripts for PCI investigations at IBM ISS X-Force, and the lack of shared investigative processes in early-career environments.

Lobsters · security · 6d agoIndustry

Operationalize CTEM with NodeZero®

Horizon3.ai publishes a factsheet on operationalizing Continuous Threat Exposure Management with NodeZero and its CTEM Operating Loop.

Horizon3.ai released a factsheet describing how its CTEM Operating Loop and NodeZero platform turn Continuous Threat Exposure Management into a repeatable process. The workflow covers discovering, validating, prioritizing, remediating, and verifying exploitable exposures. The item is vendor marketing material rather than new vulnerability disclosure or threat intelligence.

Horizon3.ai · 23d agoTools