Discrete diffusion language models can generate multiple tokens in parallel, but reducing the number of denoising steps can lead to inconsistent predictions. Standard cross-entropy training fits conditional token marginals, whereas parallel generation requires consistent joint predictions. We introduce Alpha Diffusion Language Models (AlphaDLM), trained with a sequence-level alpha loss that recovers cross-entropy in the limit of vanishing alpha and has a joint-mode optimum at alpha one. Our analysis characterizes how the objective and factorization jointly determine the fitted distribution. We identify conditions under which intermediate alpha preserves multiple valid completions while excluding invalid token combinations. Trained on TinyGSM, our method achieves 34.6% accuracy on GSM8K with only four model evaluations. We further scale the method to SDAR-1.7B and evaluate it on code and mathematics benchmarks. These results show that changing the training objective can improve the accuracy-computation trade-off of factorized diffusion language models.
The results indicate that software engineering work practices are chosen opportunistically, adapted and configured to provide value under the constrains imposed by the startup context.
Nicolò Paternoster, Carmine Giardino, M. Unterkalmsteiner et al.· Information and Software Tec...· 394 citations· ⚡54
The possibility of inferring high-dimensional data inference in a model that consists of a prior and an auxiliary differentiable constraint given some additional information is considered, thereby allowing a range of potential applications in adapting models to new domains and tasks.
Alexandros Graikos, Esmeralda S. Whitammer, N. Jojic et al.· Neural Information Processin...· 316 citations· ⚡15
It is proved that any global minimizer of the trajectory balance objective can define a policy that samples exactly from the target distribution, and empirically demonstrate the benefits of the trajectories balance objective for GFlowNet convergence, diversity of generated samples, and robustness to long action sequenc...
Esmeralda S. Whitammer, Moksh Jain, Emmanuel Bengio et al.· Neural Information Processin...· 302 citations· ⚡60
This state-of-practice investigation was performed using a literature review followed by a multiple-case study approach and presents how inconsistency between managerial strategies and execution can lead to failure by means of a behavioral framework.
Carmine Giardino, Xiaofeng Wang, P. Abrahamsson· International Conference on...· 175 citations· ⚡19
This work investigates the possibilities of using LLMs in a resume screening setting via a document retrieval framework that simulates job candidate selection and finds that the MTEs are biased, significantly favoring White-associated names in 85% of cases and female-associated names in only 11.1% of cases.
This study conducts a case survey study based on the secondary data of the major pivots happened in 49 software startups, and demonstrates that customer need pivot is the most common among all pivot types.
Sohaib Shahid Bajwa, Xiaofeng Wang, Anh Nguyen-Duc et al.· Empirical Software Engineeri...· 127 citations· ⚡15
Exploring how generative AI could make machine vision more accessible to businesses. The post GenEye in a Box: Making Machine Vision Something You Can Just Ask For appeared first on GPT-Lab.
MIT News · Artificial Intelligence· news.mit.eduOct 7, 2026
Students in MIT’s Concourse program delve deeply into the human condition, debate challenging questions, and learn to develop judgment about issues that can’t be quantified.
Training AI agents with reinforcement learning can be challenging because their tools, context, and decision-making are managed by complex frameworks. Agent Lightning connects existing agents to RL training, making it easier to improve them without rebuilding them. The post Agent Lightning v1.0: A 3,500-Line Lightweight Agentic RL Framework for Training Agents with Real Harnesses appeared first on Microsoft Research.
MIT News · Artificial Intelligence· news.mit.eduOct 6, 2026
