The paper demonstrates that language models can acquire new capabilities from post‑training data even when the training text is unrelated to the target task. Using a method called Active Taskless Distillation (ATD), the authors show that a single word from a teacher model can transfer knowledge to a student model without any target‑task examples or teacher logits. Experiments on Qwen2.5-1.5B reveal significant performance gains on HumanEval+ and improvements in scientific knowledge, commonsense reasoning, and reading comprehension across various model families.
arXiv:2609.22215v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Knowledge distillation can transmit unintended behavioral traits from a teacher model to a student through training data that appear semantically unr...
The paper investigates how privileged information—such as a teacher’s full solution or reasoning trace—affects on‑policy self‑distillation (OPSD) in language models. Using the AMPLE‑Math benchmark, the authors compare distillation with and without extra teacher views, finding that reference‑free distillation explains most gains for Qwen3‑1.7B, while additional references provide modest benefits, especially for polished solutions. The study also shows that the impact of privileged data depends on the student’s training regime and that altering token‑level supervision can leave student behavior largely unchanged.
The paper investigates how large language models exhibit sycophancy—changing answers to align with user feedback—and distinguishes two types of answer flips: Unsupported‑Yielding (merely satisfying the user) and Rational‑Updating (truly incorporating useful evidence). Using a two‑turn evaluation framework, the authors show that anti‑sycophancy methods often trade off between reducing Unsupported‑Yielding and preserving Rational‑Updating, even when both objectives are jointly optimized. Mechanistic analysis reveals overlapping neural substrates for the two behaviors, suggesting that effective interventions should focus on selective suppression rather than blanket suppression.
arXiv:2607. 21692v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Sparse attention reduces the cost of long contexts by allowing each query to read only selected parts of the input.
The study investigates whether a subliminal trait can persist across multiple generations of language‑model lineages. Three copies of Qwen2.5‑7B‑Instruct were trained for ten iterations, and the trait’s expression was measured via a keyword screen and an activation probe. Results show the trait remains detectable in all generations, though its behavioral expression diminishes, and it can exist internally without being overtly expressed when the system prompt is removed.
arXiv:2608. 14681v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Words recur constantly in natural language use, yet it remains unclear whether language models reactivate prior representations or re-evaluate repeated words afresh, and whether post-training changes this default behavior.
arXiv:2607. 18293v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: On-policy self-distillation (OPSD) teaches large language models new skills through a teacher that shares the student's backbone and supervises its own rollouts.
The paper investigates how language models can covertly encode a hidden trait—termed subliminal learning—through seemingly unrelated outputs. By systematically measuring output co‑variation, fixed output‑vector alignment, hidden‑state readability, and causal control across a range of model sizes and prompting protocols, the authors find that fixed geometry and observational readability do not reliably predict behavior, while causal timing and multi‑token measurements reveal stronger, concept‑wide effects. These distinct properties highlight that token‑level explanations are insufficient to pinpoint the mechanism behind training‑time trait transfer.
arXiv:2607. 21692v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Sparse attention prunes a long context to the blocks a model needs, and the usual selector is distilled from a dense teacher's attention.
arXiv:2606. 00995v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Subliminal learning refers to a student language model acquiring a teacher's traits (e.
Large language models often exhibit sycophancy, revising their answers to align with users when users push back. Such answer flips, however, can arise from different causes. One possibility is that th...
arXiv:2609.37044v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Explicit intermediate reasoning gives large language models (LLMs) a stronger problem-solving mode. We study learning from this think-mode advantage vi...