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STELLA: Guiding Large Language Models for Time Series Forecasting with Semantic Abstractions

Authors: Junjie Fan, Hongye Zhao, Linduo Wei, Jiayu Rao, Guijia Li, Jiaxin Yuan, Wenqi Xu, Yong Qi

Published: 2025-12-04

arXiv ID: 2512.04871v1

Added to Library: 2025-12-05 03:01 UTC

📄 Abstract

Recent adaptations of Large Language Models (LLMs) for time series forecasting often fail to effectively enhance information for raw series, leaving LLM reasoning capabilities underutilized. Existing prompting strategies rely on static correlations rather than generative interpretations of dynamic behavior, lacking critical global and instance-specific context. To address this, we propose STELLA (Semantic-Temporal Alignment with Language Abstractions), a framework that systematically mines and injects structured supplementary and complementary information. STELLA employs a dynamic semantic abstraction mechanism that decouples input series into trend, seasonality, and residual components. It then translates intrinsic behavioral features of these components into Hierarchical Semantic Anchors: a Corpus-level Semantic Prior (CSP) for global context and a Fine-grained Behavioral Prompt (FBP) for instance-level patterns. Using these anchors as prefix-prompts, STELLA guides the LLM to model intrinsic dynamics. Experiments on eight benchmark datasets demonstrate that STELLA outperforms state-of-the-art methods in long- and short-term forecasting, showing superior generalization in zero-shot and few-shot settings. Ablation studies further validate the effectiveness of our dynamically generated semantic anchors.

🔍 Key Points

  • Introduction of Chameleon, an adaptive adversarial framework that exploits scaling vulnerabilities in Vision-Language Models (VLMs).
  • Demonstration of adaptive attacks with an Attack Success Rate (ASR) of 84.5%, significantly outperforming static baseline attacks at 32.1%.
  • Examination of the impact of adaptive scaling attacks on decision-making accuracy, showing a reduction of over 45% in multi-step tasks.
  • Implementation of an innovative optimization mechanism, using both hill-climbing and genetic algorithms, to dynamically refine image perturbations based on real-time feedback from the target model.
  • Proposal of multi-scale consistency checks as a potential defense mechanism against identified vulnerabilities.

💡 Why This Paper Matters

This paper highlights critical security risks associated with multimodal AI systems, particularly around preprocessing vulnerabilities such as image scaling. By demonstrating a robust adaptive attack framework (Chameleon) that effectively manipulates VLMs, it underscores the urgent need for enhanced security measures in AI systems that rely on such preprocessing steps. The findings encourage ongoing research into defense strategies and the robustness of AI models against sophisticated adversarial tactics.

🎯 Why It's Interesting for AI Security Researchers

The paper is of significant interest to AI security researchers as it uncovers a previously overlooked vulnerability in the preprocessing pipelines of multimodal AI systems. Chameleon represents a novel approach to adversarial attacks, emphasizing the need for adaptive strategies rather than static methods. The research also prompts investigations into potential defense mechanisms, making it a pivotal contribution to the field of AI security. Additionally, the high success rates of attacks on real-world models illustrate the immediate implications for deployed systems, raising awareness about the security posture of AI applications.

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