Daily Issue
Vol. I — No. 60
26 · 08
Wednesday, 26 August 2026
Generated 2026-08-26 09:45
google/gemini-2.5-flash-lite
My mom loved to sing - and I'll go on record and say she was the worst singer ever. I'd get up and move away from her! — Kenny Rogers 34 items · 3 sections
§ 0

The Morning

Local weather 1
This morning in
London
Overcast
Today's range
24.6°↓18.5°
currently 21.2°
Feels
22.0°
Rain
63%
Wind
10 km/h
Humid
74%
Rise
06:03
Set
20:00
§ I

From the arXiv

arXiv preprints 10 of 20
cs.AIarxiv:2608.24571v1Lead article

Joint Optimization of Tool Creation and Use for Large Language Model Agents

Zhi Rui Tam, Chieh-Yen Lin, Yun-Nung Chen, Shao-Hua Sun, Hung-yi Lee

his paper introduces SMITH, a reinforcement learning framework that jointly optimizes LLM agent tool creation and usage within a single policy. By training tool building and invocation together, and using independent reward signals for schema, code, and outcome correctness, SMITH enables agents to learn to create and effectively use tools. This approach significantly improves performance on procedural reasoning tasks compared to existing methods.

Left: Overview of OPDVR. The ReLU gating mechanism ensures correct trajectories receive non-negative rewards and incorrect ones receive non-positive rewards, while preserving the teacher’s distributional guidance. Right: Results on AIME24, AIME25, and AMC under the same-architecture setting (Qwen3-4B ← \( \leftarrow \) Qwen3-4B-RL), reported as avg@16 accuracy.
Left: Overview of OPDVR. The ReLU gating mechanism ensures correct trajectories receive non-negative rewards and incorrect ones receive non-positive rewards, while preserving the teacher’s distributio…
cs.AIarxiv:2608.24696v1

On-policy Distillation with Verifiable Reward

Wenze Lin, Jiale Zhao et al.

This paper proposes **OPDVR**, a novel method that seamlessly integrates on-policy distillation (OPD) and reinforcement learning with verifiable rewards (RLVR) for post-training large language models. The core innovation is reformulating OPD's implicit reward …

cs.AIarxiv:2608.24658v1

Parason: Revealing Subtask and Trial Parallelism in LLM Reasoning

Zhengyang Zhang, Zijian Zhang et al.

This paper introduces Parason, a method that identifies and leverages two types of parallelism in LLM reasoning: Subtask Parallelism (breaking down a task) and Trial Parallelism (parallel exploration of hypotheses). The key contribution is demonstrating that T…

Overview of two types of parallelism. The figure contrasts Subtask Parallelism, where all decomposed branches are needed for the final answer, with Trial Parallelism, where multiple uncertain paths are explored as alternative (OR) branches. Despite this OR relation, the outputs of all Trial branches are concatenated into the subsequent context, making every branch’s content available for final synthesis. While previous work mainly focuses on Subtask Parallelism, our analysis shows that Trial Parallelism accounts for the majority of parallelizable reasoning on HLE for every model we study, and exceeds 58% for DeepSeek-R1 and DeepSeek-V4 across both datasets.
Overview of two types of parallelism. The figure contrasts Subtask Parallelism, where all decomposed branches are needed for the final answer, with Trial Parallelism, where multiple uncertain paths ar…
cs.AIarxiv:2608.24876v1

Recursive Experiential-Working Memory Evolution for Long-Horizon Agent Harnesses

Zhaochen Yu, Yingcheng Wu et al.

This paper introduces Recuris, a novel architecture designed to overcome challenges in long-horizon tasks by employing a recursive Experiential-Working Memory. Recuris uses Working Memory to track task progress and guide skill selection from Experiential Memor…

cs.AIarxiv:2608.24662v1

The Invisible Editorial Layer: Formalizing Undisclosed Inference-Time Steering, Probability Placement, and the Attribution Problem in Deployed Language Models

Augusto Camargo

This paper introduces the concept of an "invisible editorial layer" in deployed language models, where undisclosed interventions modify the model's probability distribution at inference time. This layer allows for systematic steering of generated text, creatin…

№06
cs.CL
9

SkillForge: Evolving Verifiable Skills for Reinforcement Learning Agents

Shidong Yang, Ziyu Ma et al.

SkillForge addresses the limitation of episodic reinforcement learning agents by introducing a framework for continuous skill evolution. It allows skills to be verified and refined…

№07
cs.AI
8

CAFE: Self-Improving Search Agents Need Co-Evolving Feedback

Boyang Liu, Senjie Jin et al.

CAFE introduces a novel framework where a single model acts as both a search agent and a feedback critic, enabling self-improvement. The core method involves the agent learning to …

№08
cs.AI
8

Confident at the moment of action: belief miscalibration in LLM play under hidden information

Bhushan Kashinath Joshi

This paper investigates whether Large Language Models (LLMs) accurately reflect their knowledge when making decisions under uncertainty. The core method involves testing LLMs in a …

№09
cs.AI
8

EviDx: Evidence-Aware Active Diagnosis with Scaffolded LLM Agents

Lihang Zeng, Shaoting Zhang et al.

EviDx is a novel framework for active clinical diagnosis using LLM agents. It addresses the limitations of static LLM diagnosis by creating interactive, evidence-seeking environmen…

№10
cs.AI
8

Meta$^n$: Recursive Self-Improvement through Emergent Depth

Zae Myung Kim, Young-Jun Lee et al.

Meta$^n$ achieves recursive self-improvement by repeatedly applying a fixed meta-operation ($Ω$) to its own outputs, rather than modifying the operation itself. This allows for eme…

§ II

The Town Square

Hacker News 5
compiled overnight by google/gemini-2.5-flash-lite · end of issue no. 60 · thank you for reading