Position: Profiling Game Worlds by Transition Complexity

arXiv:2608.18079v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Game world modeling (GWM) and reinforcement learning (RL) are often confounded because research papers rarely quantify how difficult the underlying transition prediction problem is at the declared interface (pixels/tokens/latents with finite history). We propose the Transition Complexity Profile (TCP): a small, reproducible set of metrics that characterizes an environment’s (or gameplay dataset’s) induced transition kernel by (i) intrinsic one-step branching, (ii) interaction-induced uncertainty and opponent influence when observable, and (iii) temporal/spatial dependency span via standardized probe curves. TCP is reported with an explicit reference distribution, protocol stochasticity, and a versioned measurement budget (sampling/resampling and fixed probe compute), enabling comparable numbers across benchmarks. We outline how common game families and modern “neural game engine” domains populate this landscape and call for TCP to become standard benchmark metadata and a required statistic in GWM and RL papers.
Continue ReadingPosition: Profiling Game Worlds by Transition Complexity

Large Language Models in Mental Health: A Systematic Review of Applications, Innovations, and Ethical Challenges

arXiv:2608.18080v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: We present a review on the applications of large language models (LLMs) in health, e.g., social media analysis, clinical conversational agents, therapy support tools, prompt engineering, multimodal learning, and ethical considerations. We integrate findings from interdisciplinary studies utilizing diverse data sources such as social media posts, electronic medical records, and multimodal inputs to enable early detection of depression, suicide risk assessment, personalized therapy support, and psychoeducational content generation. Our review highlights advancements in LLM models and annotation strategies that enhance interpretability and clinical relevance, while we also emphasize the critical role of prompt engineering for domain adaptation. We also discuss emerging multimodal fusion techniques integrating text, speech, and sensor data for improved mental health diagnosis and monitoring. Finally, we address ongoing ethical, sociotechnical, and regulatory challenges, and advocate frameworks to ensure safe, equitable, and accountable deployment of LLMs in real-world mental health care.
Continue ReadingLarge Language Models in Mental Health: A Systematic Review of Applications, Innovations, and Ethical Challenges

Position: Behavioral Systems Require Behavioral Tests

arXiv:2608.18081v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Artificial agentic systems increasingly operate as behavioral systems by interacting with dynamic environments, pursuing goals, and adapting over time. Yet, current evaluation methods largely focus on performance outcomes, not the underlying behavioral processes that produce them. This paper argues that AI agents must be evaluated like other behavioral systems: through systematic observation, perturbation, and interpretation of their actions. We draw on lessons from the behavioral sciences to motivate this position, and propose a research agenda focused on developing rigorous behavioral tests. These include methods for recovering decision strategies from action sequences, constructing environments that isolate behavioral differences, and probing emergent dynamics in multi-agent systems. Taken together, these directions offer a roadmap for developing a science of AI behavior.
Continue ReadingPosition: Behavioral Systems Require Behavioral Tests

Position: Current Model Cards Are Insufficient for Downstream Governance of Open-Weight Foundation Models

arXiv:2608.18086v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: The growth of open-weight foundation models (OWFMs) has prompted the AI community to re-evaluate strategies for effective downstream governance. Although model cards have been widely adopted as transparency artifacts in model repositories, existing frameworks often fail to adequately inform downstream developers and users about the distinct safety challenges posed by OWFMs. This position paper analyzes 500 model cards hosted on Hugging Face and argues that effective governance of OWFMs requires a multi-layered approach integrating three complementary components: (i) model cards, (ii) acceptable use policies (AUPs), and (iii) licenses. To motivate this claim, we identify a safety gap left by existing regulatory approaches, including model heritage, alignment provenance, and empirically observed behaviors, through an analysis of model cards with safety-critical information. We further argue that standard open-source licenses (OSLs) are not well suited for OWFMs and may weaken the enforceability of AUPs. Building on these observations, we outline directions for evolving model cards, AUPs, and licenses into integrated safety artifacts to enable a more comprehensive governance framework that coherently integrates informational, normative, and legal dimensions.
Continue ReadingPosition: Current Model Cards Are Insufficient for Downstream Governance of Open-Weight Foundation Models