Understanding Tone-Dependent Inference Cost in Large Language Models
arXiv:2607. 23915v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: We examine how prompt tone affects both accuracy of the LLM answers and inference cost as reflected in output-token consumption.
We examine how prompt tone affects both accuracy of the LLM answers and inference cost as reflected in output-token consumption. Experiments were performed to understand the trade-offs between accuracy and inference cost on a 570 Question MMLU dataset for LLM models prompted in seven different tones from sycophantic to threatening.
arXiv:2607. 23915v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: We examine how prompt tone affects both accuracy of the LLM answers and inference cost as reflected in output-token consumption.
arXiv:2606. 24083v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: "Talk short.
The paper investigates how prompt design influences energy consumption in on-device large language models (LLMs). It examines two prompt properties—cognitive load and phrasing pattern—across various datasets, models, and devices, using phase-level profiling to separate prefill and decode energy. Findings show that cognitive load mainly affects energy per token, while phrasing pattern influences energy mainly through token usage, and that prompt design reshapes the energy-quality trade‑off differently for each model.
arXiv:2608. 12150v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Standard evaluation of large language models assumes stable model rankings across inference conditions.
As the chain-of-thought reasoning capabilities of large language models improve, evaluating and calibrating their reasoning confidence is becoming increasingly important for quantifying the uncertaint...
The paper introduces Variance‑Calibrated Modulation (VCM), a training‑free pre‑decoding technique that reshapes language model probability distributions before truncation. VCM uses two dynamic mechanisms: a Contextual Searchlight via PMI to suppress stopwords and highlight context‑relevant tokens, and an Adaptive Self‑Debiasing that applies scale‑invariant penalization based on real‑time logit standard deviation. Experiments on open‑ended generation, factual QA, and mathematical reasoning show that VCM consistently reduces the likelihood trap, improving diversity, coherence, and reasoning accuracy with minimal computational cost.
The asymmetry between language production and perception has been well-documented in psycholinguistics. Whether large language models (LLMs) exhibit a functionally analogous distinction remains an open question, particularly given that LLMs rely on the same underlying mechanism (next-token prediction) for both input and output processing.
arXiv:2609.14817v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: In Yor\`ub\'a, pitch alone separates \d{o}k\d{o} (husband, Mid), \d{o}k\d{\`o} (vehicle, Low), and \d{o}k\d{\'o} (hoe, High) -- the diacritics ARE the...
arXiv:2609.15313v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Autoregressive generation of interleaved text and acoustic tokens is a common approach to spoken-response generation in speech large language models....
The paper introduces a calibrated instrument for rigorously measuring how inference optimizations—such as quantization, early‑exit, and speculative decoding—affect the output quality of large language models. It uses a formally calibrated LLM judge that verifies no systematic bias between statistically equivalent outputs and includes a null condition to ensure measured differences are zero. Applying this method, the authors find that a 4‑bit model is indistinguishable from its 16‑bit counterpart, while 3‑bit quantization and early‑exit techniques incur measurable quality losses that vary by language and task, and that token‑certainty‑based acceptance rules cannot reliably identify impactful errors.
arXiv:2608. 03970v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Human input reaches language models by typing or speaking, and each channel leaves a distinct signature: orthographic noise for keyboards; for voice, disfluency from conventional transcription and restructuring from AI-backed dictation tools.
arXiv:2606. 19364v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: The prefill stage of Large Language Model (LLM) inference is a growing contributor to cloud-scale energy cost.