arXiv AI

Exact Attention Sensitivity and the Geometry of Transformer Stability

arXiv:2602. 18849v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: We develop a sensitivity analysis for transformer attention in a geometry aligned with tokenwise computation.

arXiv AI
Aug 6

The Hamilton-Jacobi Theory of Deep Learning

arXiv:2605. 28983v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: In this paper, training a neural network is identified, exactly, as a search through Hamilton--Jacobi initial-value problems: each gradient step selects the initial data of a viscous Hamilton--Jacobi equation whose Hopf--Cole propagator best fits the observations; at inference, the input is the spatial point at which that solution is evaluated and the initial condition is already encoded in the weights.

By Jose Marie Antonio Mi\~noza, Erika Fille T. Legara, Christopher P. Monterola
arXiv Machine Learning
Jun 9

Token Sample Complexity of Attention

arXiv:2512. 10656v3 Announce Type: replace Abstract: As context windows in large language models continue to expand, it is essential to characterize how attention behaves at extreme sequence lengths.

By L\'ea Bohbot, Cyril Letrouit, Gabriel Peyr\'e, Fran\c{c}ois-Xavier Vialard
arXiv Machine Learning
Jul 10

Threshold Differential Attention for Sink-Free, Ultra-Sparse, and Non-Dispersive Language Modeling

arXiv:2601. 12145v3 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Softmax attention struggles with long contexts due to structural limitations: the strict sum-to-one constraint forces attention sinks on irrelevant tokens, and probability mass disperses as sequence lengths increase.

By Xingyue Huang, Xueying Ding, Mingxuan Ju, Yozen Liu, Neil Shah, Tong Zhao
arXiv AI
Jul 21

First-Order Predictable but Pairwise Fragile: Local Task Adaptation in Trained Transformers

arXiv:2607. 16821v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Task arithmetic, sequential fine-tuning, activation steering, and first-order random search all operate through relatively small perturbations around an already trained checkpoint, and they rely on different local approximations: individual perturbations should be first-order predictable, task updates should compose with controlled interference, useful tangent structure should be stable and possible to estimate, and weight edits should have counterparts in representation space.

By Irina Piontkovskaia, Sergey Nikolenko