Uncovering Systemic and Environment Errors in Autonomous Systems Using Differential Testing

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Main Authors: Anand, Yashwanthi, Mehta, Rahil P, Motwani, Manish, Saisubramanian, Sandhya
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Anand, Yashwanthi
Mehta, Rahil P
Motwani, Manish
Saisubramanian, Sandhya
author_facet Anand, Yashwanthi
Mehta, Rahil P
Motwani, Manish
Saisubramanian, Sandhya
contents When an autonomous agent behaves undesirably, including failure to complete a task, it can be difficult to determine whether the behavior is due to a systemic agent error, such as flaws in the model or policy, or an environment error, where a task is inherently infeasible under a given environment configuration, even for an ideal agent. As agents and their environments grow more complex, identifying the error source becomes increasingly difficult but critical for reliable deployment. We introduce AIProbe, a novel black-box testing technique that applies differential testing to attribute undesirable agent behaviors either to agent deficiencies, such as modeling or training flaws, or due to environmental infeasibility. AIProbe first generates diverse environmental configurations and tasks for testing the agent, by modifying configurable parameters using Latin Hypercube sampling. It then solves each generated task using a search-based planner, independent of the agent. By comparing the agent's performance to the planner's solution, AIProbe identifies whether failures are due to errors in the agent's model or policy, or due to unsolvable task conditions. Our evaluation across multiple domains shows that AIProbe significantly outperforms state-of-the-art techniques in detecting both total and unique errors, thereby contributing to a reliable deployment of autonomous agents.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_03870
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Uncovering Systemic and Environment Errors in Autonomous Systems Using Differential Testing
Anand, Yashwanthi
Mehta, Rahil P
Motwani, Manish
Saisubramanian, Sandhya
Artificial Intelligence
When an autonomous agent behaves undesirably, including failure to complete a task, it can be difficult to determine whether the behavior is due to a systemic agent error, such as flaws in the model or policy, or an environment error, where a task is inherently infeasible under a given environment configuration, even for an ideal agent. As agents and their environments grow more complex, identifying the error source becomes increasingly difficult but critical for reliable deployment. We introduce AIProbe, a novel black-box testing technique that applies differential testing to attribute undesirable agent behaviors either to agent deficiencies, such as modeling or training flaws, or due to environmental infeasibility. AIProbe first generates diverse environmental configurations and tasks for testing the agent, by modifying configurable parameters using Latin Hypercube sampling. It then solves each generated task using a search-based planner, independent of the agent. By comparing the agent's performance to the planner's solution, AIProbe identifies whether failures are due to errors in the agent's model or policy, or due to unsolvable task conditions. Our evaluation across multiple domains shows that AIProbe significantly outperforms state-of-the-art techniques in detecting both total and unique errors, thereby contributing to a reliable deployment of autonomous agents.
title Uncovering Systemic and Environment Errors in Autonomous Systems Using Differential Testing
topic Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.03870