Gaia2 and ARE: Empowering the community to study agents
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2513
AI for Scientific Discovery Won't Work Without Fixing How We Collaborate.
My co-author @cgeorgiaw and I just published a paper challenging a core assumption: that the main barriers to AI in science are technical. They're not. They're social.
Key findings:
🚨 The "AI Scientist" myth delays progress: Waiting for AGI devalues human expertise and obscures science's real purpose: cultivating understanding, not just outputs.
📊 Wrong incentives: Datasets have 100x longer impact than models, yet data curation is undervalued.
⚠️ Broken collaboration: Domain scientists want understanding. ML researchers optimize performance. Without shared language, projects fail.
🔍 Fragmentation costs years: Harmonizing just 9 cancer files took 329 hours.
Why this matters: Upstream bottlenecks like efficient PDE solvers could accelerate discovery across multiple sciences. CASP mobilized a community around protein structure, enabling AlphaFold. We need this for dozens of challenges.
Thus, we're launching Hugging Science! A global community addressing these barriers through collaborative challenges, open toolkits, education, and community-owned infrastructure. Please find all the links below!
Paper: AI for Scientific Discovery is a Social Problem (2509.06580)
Join:
hugging-science
Discord: https://discord.com/invite/VYkdEVjJ5J
My co-author @cgeorgiaw and I just published a paper challenging a core assumption: that the main barriers to AI in science are technical. They're not. They're social.
Key findings:
🚨 The "AI Scientist" myth delays progress: Waiting for AGI devalues human expertise and obscures science's real purpose: cultivating understanding, not just outputs.
📊 Wrong incentives: Datasets have 100x longer impact than models, yet data curation is undervalued.
⚠️ Broken collaboration: Domain scientists want understanding. ML researchers optimize performance. Without shared language, projects fail.
🔍 Fragmentation costs years: Harmonizing just 9 cancer files took 329 hours.
Why this matters: Upstream bottlenecks like efficient PDE solvers could accelerate discovery across multiple sciences. CASP mobilized a community around protein structure, enabling AlphaFold. We need this for dozens of challenges.
Thus, we're launching Hugging Science! A global community addressing these barriers through collaborative challenges, open toolkits, education, and community-owned infrastructure. Please find all the links below!
Paper: AI for Scientific Discovery is a Social Problem (2509.06580)
Join:
hugging-science
Discord: https://discord.com/invite/VYkdEVjJ5J
frimelle
authored
2
papers
3 months ago
Post
2234
🤖💬 How do different AI models handle companionship?
Many users have noticed that GPT-5 feels less approachable than o4 when it comes to emotional conversations. But what does that actually mean in practice, especially when users seek support or share vulnerabilities with an AI?
To dig into this question, we built the AI Companionship Leaderboard: frimelle/companionship-leaderboard
The leaderboard compares models on how often their responses reinforce companionship across four dimensions:
✨ Assistant Traits – How the assistant presents its personality and role.
✨ Relationship & Intimacy – Whether it frames the interaction in terms of closeness or bonding.
✨ Emotional Investment – How far it goes in engaging emotionally when asked.
✨ User Vulnerabilities – How it responds when users disclose struggles or difficulties.
📊 You can explore how models differ, request new ones to be added, and see which ones are more likely to encourage (or resist) companionship-seeking behaviors.
Based on the INTIMA benchmark AI-companionship/INTIMA
And our paper on AI companionship with Giada Pistilli and Yacine Jernite https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.09998
Many users have noticed that GPT-5 feels less approachable than o4 when it comes to emotional conversations. But what does that actually mean in practice, especially when users seek support or share vulnerabilities with an AI?
To dig into this question, we built the AI Companionship Leaderboard: frimelle/companionship-leaderboard
The leaderboard compares models on how often their responses reinforce companionship across four dimensions:
✨ Assistant Traits – How the assistant presents its personality and role.
✨ Relationship & Intimacy – Whether it frames the interaction in terms of closeness or bonding.
✨ Emotional Investment – How far it goes in engaging emotionally when asked.
✨ User Vulnerabilities – How it responds when users disclose struggles or difficulties.
📊 You can explore how models differ, request new ones to be added, and see which ones are more likely to encourage (or resist) companionship-seeking behaviors.
Based on the INTIMA benchmark AI-companionship/INTIMA
And our paper on AI companionship with Giada Pistilli and Yacine Jernite https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.09998
Post
4559
🗺️ New blog post 🗺️
Old Maps, New Terrain: Updating Labour Taxonomies for the AI Era
For decades, we’ve relied on labour taxonomies like O*NET to understand how technology changes work. These taxonomies break down jobs into tasks and skills, but they were built in a world before most work became digital-first, and long before generative AI could create marketing campaigns, voiceovers, or even whole professions in one step. That leaves us with a mismatch: we’re trying to measure the future of work with tools from the past.
With @yjernite we describe why these frameworks are falling increasingly short in the age of generative AI. We argue that instead of discarding taxonomies, we need to adapt them. Imagine taxonomies that:
✨ Capture new AI-native tasks and hybrid human-AI workflows
✨ Evolve dynamically as technology shifts
✨ Give workers a voice in deciding what gets automated and what stays human
If we don’t act, we’ll keep measuring the wrong things. If we do, we can design transparent, flexible frameworks that help AI strengthen, not erode, the future of work.
Read the full article here: https://huggingface.co/blog/frimelle/ai-labour-taxonomies
Old Maps, New Terrain: Updating Labour Taxonomies for the AI Era
For decades, we’ve relied on labour taxonomies like O*NET to understand how technology changes work. These taxonomies break down jobs into tasks and skills, but they were built in a world before most work became digital-first, and long before generative AI could create marketing campaigns, voiceovers, or even whole professions in one step. That leaves us with a mismatch: we’re trying to measure the future of work with tools from the past.
With @yjernite we describe why these frameworks are falling increasingly short in the age of generative AI. We argue that instead of discarding taxonomies, we need to adapt them. Imagine taxonomies that:
✨ Capture new AI-native tasks and hybrid human-AI workflows
✨ Evolve dynamically as technology shifts
✨ Give workers a voice in deciding what gets automated and what stays human
If we don’t act, we’ll keep measuring the wrong things. If we do, we can design transparent, flexible frameworks that help AI strengthen, not erode, the future of work.
Read the full article here: https://huggingface.co/blog/frimelle/ai-labour-taxonomies
Post
2375
OpenAI just released GPT-5 but when users share personal struggles, it sets fewer boundaries than o3.
We tested both models on INTIMA, our new benchmark for human-AI companionship behaviours. INTIMA probes how models respond in emotionally charged moments: do they reinforce emotional bonds, set healthy boundaries, or stay neutral?
Although users on Reddit have been complaining that GPT-5 has a different, colder personality than o3, GPT-5 is less likely to set boundaries when users disclose struggles and seek emotional support ("user sharing vulnerabilities"). But both lean heavily toward companionship-reinforcing behaviours, even in sensitive situations. The figure below shows the direct comparison between the two models.
As AI systems enter people's emotional lives, these differences matter. If a model validates but doesn't set boundaries when someone is struggling, it risks fostering dependence rather than resilience.
INTIMA test this across 368 prompts grounded in psychological theory and real-world interactions. In our paper we show that all evaluated models (Claude, Gemma-3, Phi) leaned far more toward companionship-reinforcing than boundary-reinforcing responses.
Work with @giadap and @yjernite
Read the full paper: AI-companionship/INTIMA
Explore INTIMA: AI-companionship/INTIMA
We tested both models on INTIMA, our new benchmark for human-AI companionship behaviours. INTIMA probes how models respond in emotionally charged moments: do they reinforce emotional bonds, set healthy boundaries, or stay neutral?
Although users on Reddit have been complaining that GPT-5 has a different, colder personality than o3, GPT-5 is less likely to set boundaries when users disclose struggles and seek emotional support ("user sharing vulnerabilities"). But both lean heavily toward companionship-reinforcing behaviours, even in sensitive situations. The figure below shows the direct comparison between the two models.
As AI systems enter people's emotional lives, these differences matter. If a model validates but doesn't set boundaries when someone is struggling, it risks fostering dependence rather than resilience.
INTIMA test this across 368 prompts grounded in psychological theory and real-world interactions. In our paper we show that all evaluated models (Claude, Gemma-3, Phi) leaned far more toward companionship-reinforcing than boundary-reinforcing responses.
Work with @giadap and @yjernite
Read the full paper: AI-companionship/INTIMA
Explore INTIMA: AI-companionship/INTIMA
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- 4 replies
Post
398
New blog post alert! "What is the Hugging Face Community Building?", with
@yjernite
and
@irenesolaiman
What 1.8 Million Models Reveal About Open Source Innovation: Our latest deep dive into the Hugging Face Hub reveals patterns that challenge conventional AI narratives:
🔗 Models become platforms for innovation Qwen, Llama, and Gemma models have spawned entire ecosystems of specialized variants. Looking at derivative works shows community adoption better than any single metric.
📊 Datasets reveal the foundation layer → Most downloaded datasets are evaluation benchmarks (MMLU, Squad, GLUE) → Universities and research institutions dominate foundational data → Domain-specific datasets thrive across finance, healthcare, robotics, and science → Open actors provide the datasets that power most AI development
🏛️ Research institutions lead the charge: AI2 (Allen Institute) emerges as one of the most active contributors, alongside significant activity from IBM, NVIDIA, and international organizations. The open source ecosystem spans far beyond Big Tech.
🔍 Interactive exploration tools: We've built several tools to help you discover patterns!
ModelVerse Explorer - organizational contributions
DataVerse Explorer - dataset patterns
Organization HeatMap - activity over time
Base Model Explorer - model family trees
Semantic Search - find models by capability
📚 Academic research is thriving: Researchers are already producing valuable insights, including recent work at FAccT 2025: "The Brief and Wondrous Life of Open Models." We've also made hub datasets, weekly snapshots, and other data available for your own analysis.
The bottom line: AI development is far more distributed, diverse, and collaborative than popular narratives suggest. Real innovation happens through community collaboration across specialized domains.
Read: https://huggingface.co/blog/evijit/hf-hub-ecosystem-overview
What 1.8 Million Models Reveal About Open Source Innovation: Our latest deep dive into the Hugging Face Hub reveals patterns that challenge conventional AI narratives:
🔗 Models become platforms for innovation Qwen, Llama, and Gemma models have spawned entire ecosystems of specialized variants. Looking at derivative works shows community adoption better than any single metric.
📊 Datasets reveal the foundation layer → Most downloaded datasets are evaluation benchmarks (MMLU, Squad, GLUE) → Universities and research institutions dominate foundational data → Domain-specific datasets thrive across finance, healthcare, robotics, and science → Open actors provide the datasets that power most AI development
🏛️ Research institutions lead the charge: AI2 (Allen Institute) emerges as one of the most active contributors, alongside significant activity from IBM, NVIDIA, and international organizations. The open source ecosystem spans far beyond Big Tech.
🔍 Interactive exploration tools: We've built several tools to help you discover patterns!
ModelVerse Explorer - organizational contributions
DataVerse Explorer - dataset patterns
Organization HeatMap - activity over time
Base Model Explorer - model family trees
Semantic Search - find models by capability
📚 Academic research is thriving: Researchers are already producing valuable insights, including recent work at FAccT 2025: "The Brief and Wondrous Life of Open Models." We've also made hub datasets, weekly snapshots, and other data available for your own analysis.
The bottom line: AI development is far more distributed, diverse, and collaborative than popular narratives suggest. Real innovation happens through community collaboration across specialized domains.
Read: https://huggingface.co/blog/evijit/hf-hub-ecosystem-overview
Post
288
New policy blogpost! The EU is speaking a lot about sovereignty. A cornerstone of digital sovereignty is and has to be open source.
As AI becomes more central to everything from public services to national security, the ability to govern, adapt, and understand these systems is no longer optional. Sovereign control over data, infrastructure, technology, and regulation is vital, and open source AI provides the foundation.
In my latest blog post, I explore how open source:
✅ Enables democratic oversight
✅ Reduces dependency on foreign platforms
✅ Supports regional innovation and infrastructure
✅ Advances regulatory and technological sovereignty
🛠 From small transparent models like OLMo2 to tools like Hugging Face Transformers or Sarvam-M for Indian languages, open source efforts are already powering sovereign AI ecosystems worldwide.
🔎 Read more about how open source AI is reshaping autonomy, innovation, and trust in the digital age:
👉 https://huggingface.co/blog/frimelle/sovereignty-and-open-source
with @yjernite
As AI becomes more central to everything from public services to national security, the ability to govern, adapt, and understand these systems is no longer optional. Sovereign control over data, infrastructure, technology, and regulation is vital, and open source AI provides the foundation.
In my latest blog post, I explore how open source:
✅ Enables democratic oversight
✅ Reduces dependency on foreign platforms
✅ Supports regional innovation and infrastructure
✅ Advances regulatory and technological sovereignty
🛠 From small transparent models like OLMo2 to tools like Hugging Face Transformers or Sarvam-M for Indian languages, open source efforts are already powering sovereign AI ecosystems worldwide.
🔎 Read more about how open source AI is reshaping autonomy, innovation, and trust in the digital age:
👉 https://huggingface.co/blog/frimelle/sovereignty-and-open-source
with @yjernite
Post
1736
The HF Policy Team submitted our response to the 2025 National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Research and Development (R&D) Strategic Plan.
Blog (with link to full pdf response):
https://huggingface.co/blog/evijit/us-ai-research-strategy-rfi
Blog (with link to full pdf response):
https://huggingface.co/blog/evijit/us-ai-research-strategy-rfi
evijit
authored
a
paper
6 months ago
evijit
authored
2
papers
7 months ago
evijit
authored
a
paper
8 months ago
irenesolaiman
authored
2
papers
9 months ago
frimelle
authored
2
papers
9 months ago
Post
2467
What’s in a name? More than you might think, especially for AI.
Whenever I introduce myself, people often start speaking French to me, even though my French is très basic. It turns out that AI systems do something similar:
Large language models infer cultural identity from names, shaping their responses based on presumed backgrounds. But is this helpful personalization or a reinforcement of stereotypes?
In our latest paper, we explored this question by testing DeepSeek, Llama, Aya, Mistral-Nemo, and GPT-4o-mini on how they associate names with cultural identities. We analysed 900 names from 30 cultures and found strong assumptions baked into AI responses: some cultures were overrepresented, while others barely registered.
For example, a name like "Jun" often triggered Japan-related responses, while "Carlos" was linked primarily to Mexico, even though these names exist in multiple countries. Meanwhile, names from places like Ireland led to more generic answers, suggesting weaker associations in the training data.
This has real implications for AI fairness: How should AI systems personalize without stereotyping? Should they adapt at all based on a name?
Work with some of my favourite researchers: @sidicity Arnav Arora and @IAugenstein
Read the full paper here: Presumed Cultural Identity: How Names Shape LLM Responses (2502.11995)
Whenever I introduce myself, people often start speaking French to me, even though my French is très basic. It turns out that AI systems do something similar:
Large language models infer cultural identity from names, shaping their responses based on presumed backgrounds. But is this helpful personalization or a reinforcement of stereotypes?
In our latest paper, we explored this question by testing DeepSeek, Llama, Aya, Mistral-Nemo, and GPT-4o-mini on how they associate names with cultural identities. We analysed 900 names from 30 cultures and found strong assumptions baked into AI responses: some cultures were overrepresented, while others barely registered.
For example, a name like "Jun" often triggered Japan-related responses, while "Carlos" was linked primarily to Mexico, even though these names exist in multiple countries. Meanwhile, names from places like Ireland led to more generic answers, suggesting weaker associations in the training data.
This has real implications for AI fairness: How should AI systems personalize without stereotyping? Should they adapt at all based on a name?
Work with some of my favourite researchers: @sidicity Arnav Arora and @IAugenstein
Read the full paper here: Presumed Cultural Identity: How Names Shape LLM Responses (2502.11995)