AutoData: EMNLP paper uses agentic search for pre-training data selection

PMinervini · x · 2026-09-18

A new EMNLP paper, AutoData, explores whether autoresearch agents can find better pre-training data, not just better training code. The authors note data engineering gets far less attention than algorithmic autoresearch. The approach is simple—write heuristics to select data based on pre-constructed features—but works surprisingly well.

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