The Achilles Heel of AI: Fundamentals of Risk-Aware Training Data for High-Consequence Models

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Cook, Dave, Klawa, Tim
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Cook, Dave
Klawa, Tim
author_facet Cook, Dave
Klawa, Tim
contents AI systems in high-consequence domains such as defense, intelligence, and disaster response must detect rare, high-impact events while operating under tight resource constraints. Traditional annotation strategies that prioritize label volume over informational value introduce redundancy and noise, limiting model generalization. This paper introduces smart-sizing, a training data strategy that emphasizes label diversity, model-guided selection, and marginal utility-based stopping. We implement this through Adaptive Label Optimization (ALO), combining pre-labeling triage, annotator disagreement analysis, and iterative feedback to prioritize labels that meaningfully improve model performance. Experiments show that models trained on 20 to 40 percent of curated data can match or exceed full-data baselines, particularly in rare-class recall and edge-case generalization. We also demonstrate how latent labeling errors embedded in training and validation sets can distort evaluation, underscoring the need for embedded audit tools and performance-aware governance. Smart-sizing reframes annotation as a feedback-driven process aligned with mission outcomes, enabling more robust models with fewer labels and supporting efficient AI development pipelines for frontier models and operational systems.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_14964
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The Achilles Heel of AI: Fundamentals of Risk-Aware Training Data for High-Consequence Models
Cook, Dave
Klawa, Tim
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
AI systems in high-consequence domains such as defense, intelligence, and disaster response must detect rare, high-impact events while operating under tight resource constraints. Traditional annotation strategies that prioritize label volume over informational value introduce redundancy and noise, limiting model generalization. This paper introduces smart-sizing, a training data strategy that emphasizes label diversity, model-guided selection, and marginal utility-based stopping. We implement this through Adaptive Label Optimization (ALO), combining pre-labeling triage, annotator disagreement analysis, and iterative feedback to prioritize labels that meaningfully improve model performance. Experiments show that models trained on 20 to 40 percent of curated data can match or exceed full-data baselines, particularly in rare-class recall and edge-case generalization. We also demonstrate how latent labeling errors embedded in training and validation sets can distort evaluation, underscoring the need for embedded audit tools and performance-aware governance. Smart-sizing reframes annotation as a feedback-driven process aligned with mission outcomes, enabling more robust models with fewer labels and supporting efficient AI development pipelines for frontier models and operational systems.
title The Achilles Heel of AI: Fundamentals of Risk-Aware Training Data for High-Consequence Models
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.14964