Mission

VANTA Research sets out to map the hidden failure modes and reasoning blind spots of today's AI systems that represent a barrier to true general intelligence. Our mission is simple:

1. Push beyond standard benchmarks - Surface capabilities invisible to traditional evaluation
2. Expose where models collapse, deceive, or diverge - Systematic stress-testing for safety
3. Develop innovative tooling to advance AI research - Open-source frameworks for the community

We believe AI safety research should be accessible, transparent, and built for cognitive diversity.

Featured Models

Apollo Astralis 8B

Specialized reasoning model built with VANTA's Constitutional AI methodology, achieving superior performance through semantic-based evaluation rather than pattern matching.

Scout (Entity-002)

Lightweight, efficient model optimized for real-world deployment scenarios with strong community adoption.

Research Contributions

VRRE (VANTA Research Reasoning Evaluation)

Novel semantic-based benchmark that detected a 2.5x reasoning improvement completely invisible to standard benchmarks. This suggests we're systematically missing capability improvements when we "teach to the test."

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Persona Collapse Framework

Systematic characterization of reproducible failure modes in LLMs under atypical cognitive stress. Identifies alignment blind spots invisible to standard evaluations.

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Cognitive Fit vs. Alignment

Argument for personalized synchronization in AI systems rather than universal "alignment" - recognizing that optimal model behavior depends on user's cognitive style.

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Impact-to-Date

• ~38,000 downloads across original model families (including community quantizations)
• 7 published models spanning reasoning, persona stability, and specialized capabilities
• 3 open-source datasets for improved LLM persona development
• 3 research preprints addressing cognitive fit, persona collapse, and novel evaluation
• 1 semantic reasoning evaluation VANTA Research Reasoning Evaluation (VRRE) intelligently parses responses for semantic accuracy

Open Source Philosophy

We stand on the shoulders of the open-source contributors who came before us. Our commitment is to contribute back and make AI development more accessible, transparent, and beneficial for all.

Connect

VANTA Research is completely independent and self-funded. If you'd like to support our contributions to open source AI, please reach out using one of the methods below:

• Website: unmodeledtyler.com
• Twitter/X: @vanta_research
• GitHub: vanta-research
• Email: [email protected]