50.3CEJun 2Code
GROSS: German Rail Open-Source SUMO ScenarioJuri Penell, Damian Dailisan
Microscopic simulation enables reproducible evaluation in intelligent transportation systems, yet most open SUMO scenarios and toolchains remain road-traffic centric, leaving rail underrepresented despite its importance for public transport and its sensitivity to network-wide disruptions. We present the German Rail Open-Source Scenario (GROSS), an open pipeline that combines OpenStreetMap railway infrastructure with GTFS schedules to generate nation-scale rail scenarios for SUMO (Simulation of Urban MObility). Existing conversions often rely on geometry-only stop-to-track matching and inconsistent platform/track assignments, which can create routing anomalies and unstable simulations dominated by teleportation artefacts. GROSS addresses this with topology-aware stop mapping via a hierarchical station model, followed by station-level routing with validation and targeted repair. Across multiple German regions, GROSS reduces average teleportations per vehicle by a factor of 1.7--76.8$\times$, shortens delays compared to the vanilla SUMO pipeline, and it enables end-to-end generation of a Germany-wide scenario with 35\,925 trips for comparisons with operator-reported delay statistics. While the remaining long delays highlight limitations in available timetable metadata and rail dispatch modeling, GROSS lowers the barrier to building scalable, fully open rail simulations and to studying delay propagation at country scale.
AIOct 9, 2023
Dynamic value alignment through preference aggregation of multiple objectivesMarcin Korecki, Damian Dailisan, Cesare Carissimo · eth-zurich
The development of ethical AI systems is currently geared toward setting objective functions that align with human objectives. However, finding such functions remains a research challenge, while in RL, setting rewards by hand is a fairly standard approach. We present a methodology for dynamic value alignment, where the values that are to be aligned with are dynamically changing, using a multiple-objective approach. We apply this approach to extend Deep $Q$-Learning to accommodate multiple objectives and evaluate this method on a simplified two-leg intersection controlled by a switching agent.Our approach dynamically accommodates the preferences of drivers on the system and achieves better overall performance across three metrics (speeds, stops, and waits) while integrating objectives that have competing or conflicting actions.
IVMay 18, 2022
Deep-learned orthogonal basis patterns for fast, noise-robust single-pixel imagingRitz Ann Aguilar, Damian Dailisan · eth-zurich
Single-pixel imaging (SPI) is a novel, unconventional method that goes beyond the notion of traditional cameras but can be computationally expensive and slow for real-time applications. Deep learning has been proposed as an alternative approach for solving the SPI reconstruction problem, but a detailed analysis of its performance and generated basis patterns when used for SPI is limited. We present a modified deep convolutional autoencoder network (DCAN) for SPI on 64x64 pixel images with up to 6.25% compression ratio and apply binary and orthogonality regularizers during training. Training a DCAN with these regularizers allows it to learn multiple measurement bases that have combinations of binary or non-binary, and orthogonal or non-orthogonal patterns. We compare the reconstruction quality, orthogonality of the patterns, and robustness to noise of the resulting DCAN models to traditional SPI reconstruction algorithms (such as Total Variation minimization and Fourier Transform). Our DCAN models can be trained to be robust to noise while still having fast enough reconstruction times (~3 ms per frame) to be viable for real-time imaging.
81.0AIMay 14
Belief Engine: Configurable and Inspectable Stance Dynamics in Multi-Agent LLM DeliberationJoshua C. Yang, Maurice Flechtner, Damian Dailisan et al.
LLM-based agents are increasingly used to simulate deliberative interactions such as negotiation, conflict resolution, and multi-turn opinion exchange. Yet generated transcripts often do not reveal why an agent's stance changes: movement may reflect evidence uptake, anchoring, role drift, echoing, or changed prompt and retrieval context. We introduce the Belief Engine (BE), an auditable belief-update layer that treats "belief" as an evidential state over a proposition and exposes it as scalar stance. BE extracts arguments into structured memory and updates stance with a log-odds rule controlled by evidence uptake u and prior anchoring a. Across multiple base LLMs, parameter sweeps show that these controls reliably shape stance dynamics while preserving an evidence-level update trail. On DEBATE, a human deliberation dataset with pre/post opinions, BE best reconstructs participants whose final stance follows extracted evidence; stable and evidence-opposed cases instead point to anchoring or factors outside the extracted evidence stream. BE provides configurable infrastructure for studying evidence-grounded deliberation, where openness, commitment, convergence, and disagreement can be tied to explicit update assumptions rather than hidden prompt effects.
CLJan 31, 2024
LLM Voting: Human Choices and AI Collective Decision MakingJoshua C. Yang, Damian Dailisan, Marcin Korecki et al. · eth-zurich
This paper investigates the voting behaviors of Large Language Models (LLMs), specifically GPT-4 and LLaMA-2, their biases, and how they align with human voting patterns. Our methodology involved using a dataset from a human voting experiment to establish a baseline for human preferences and conducting a corresponding experiment with LLM agents. We observed that the choice of voting methods and the presentation order influenced LLM voting outcomes. We found that varying the persona can reduce some of these biases and enhance alignment with human choices. While the Chain-of-Thought approach did not improve prediction accuracy, it has potential for AI explainability in the voting process. We also identified a trade-off between preference diversity and alignment accuracy in LLMs, influenced by different temperature settings. Our findings indicate that LLMs may lead to less diverse collective outcomes and biased assumptions when used in voting scenarios, emphasizing the need for cautious integration of LLMs into democratic processes.
CYFeb 17, 2025
Addressing Moral Uncertainty using Large Language Models for Ethical Decision-MakingRohit K. Dubey, Damian Dailisan, Sachit Mahajan · eth-zurich
We present an ethical decision-making framework that refines a pre-trained reinforcement learning (RL) model using a task-agnostic ethical layer. Following initial training, the RL model undergoes ethical fine-tuning, where human feedback is replaced by feedback generated from a large language model (LLM). The LLM embodies consequentialist, deontological, virtue, social justice, and care ethics as moral principles to assign belief values to recommended actions during ethical decision-making. An ethical layer aggregates belief scores from multiple LLM-derived moral perspectives using Belief Jensen-Shannon Divergence and Dempster-Shafer Theory into probability scores that also serve as the shaping reward, steering the agent toward choices that align with a balanced ethical framework. This integrated learning framework helps the RL agent navigate moral uncertainty in complex environments and enables it to make morally sound decisions across diverse tasks. Our approach, tested across different LLM variants and compared with other belief aggregation techniques, demonstrates improved consistency, adaptability, and reduced reliance on handcrafted ethical rewards. This method is especially effective in dynamic scenarios where ethical challenges arise unexpectedly, making it well-suited for real-world applications.