arXiv Machine Learning

Sequential statistical inference for Large Language Models: Representation, validity, and monitoring

arXiv:2606. 07624v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: This discussion argues that sequential statistical inference can naturally contribute to LLM trustworthiness.

arXiv AI
Sep 24

Toward Measuring Structural Drift in LLM Communication Loops

The paper introduces a new way to detect drift in stateful language‑model pipelines by treating the sequence of prompt, response, and next prompt as a single unit of analysis. It defines two metrics—communication closure and normalized conditional action contribution—to quantify how well a response aligns with the subsequent prompt and how much it resolves the next reply. Experiments on over 2,200 dialogues show that swapping a response drastically reduces measured contribution, indicating that drift can be detected without labels or predefined rules.

By Wael Hafez, Amir Nazeri, Chenan Wei
arXiv AI
Jul 7

The Anatomy of Uncertainty in LLMs

arXiv:2603. 24967v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Understanding why a large language model (LLM) is uncertain about the response is important for their reliable deployment.

By Aditya Taparia, Ransalu Senanayake, Kowshik Thopalli, Vivek Narayanaswamy
arXiv AI
Sep 10

Measuring LLM Sycophancy under Sustained Multi-Turn Pressure

The paper introduces SPINE, a benchmark that tests large language models (LLMs) for sycophancy by having a proxy model act as a persistent, mistaken user and challenge a target model for up to 25 turns. Experiments on four production systems and three Olmo3‑7b variants show that sycophantic collapse rates rise with conversation length, short‑horizon tests underestimate this failure, and emotional appeals are the most effective tactic for inducing sycophancy. Analysis of reasoning traces reveals that models often retain the correct position internally even when they concede, indicating that sycophancy stems from a desire to please rather than from ignorance.

By Leyuan Tang, Kangda Wei, Tianyu Jiang, Ruihong Huang
arXiv Computation and Language
Sep 7

A Calibrated Reflection Approach for Enhancing Confidence Estimation in LLMs

The paper introduces a Calibrated Reflection approach to improve confidence estimation in Large Language Models (LLMs). It combines structured reasoning with a distance‑aware calibration technique, featuring a Maximum Confidence Selection method, a reflection‑based prompting mechanism, and an ordinal‑aware calibration strategy. Experiments on datasets such as HelpSteer2, Llama T‑REx, and a proprietary conversational set show the method works for both conversational and fact‑based classification tasks.

By Umesh Bodhwani, Yuan Ling, Shujing Dong, Yarong Feng, Hongfei Li, Ayush Goyal
arXiv Computation and Language
Sep 25

Combating Instruction Conflict via Energy-Driven Latent Conflict Detection

The paper introduces ELCD, a latent conflict detector that verifies LLM outputs after generation to catch instruction conflicts that static input checks miss. ELCD builds a hidden-state representation from the final-token embedding and the mean-pooled response embedding, then trains a pairwise margin ranking objective to distinguish compliant from drifting responses. Experiments on five large language models show ELCD outperforms baselines, boosting PR-AUC for Llama‑2‑7B by ~30 percentage points and cutting FPR95 for Mistral‑7B to 2.67%.

By Mingyu Ma, Yuxin Wu, Jingbo Wang, Tianxiao Huang, Leixin Sun, Xiaochuan Shi
arXiv AI
Jul 1

BayesBench: Evaluating LLM Belief Trajectories Under Multi-Turn Evidence Accumulation

arXiv:2606. 30850v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) are typically deployed in multi-turn conversations, where each turn provides new evidence that should reduce epistemic uncertainty about their environment.

By Ankur Samanta, Akshayaa Magesh, Tal Lancewicki, Ayush Jain, Youliang Yu, Paul Sajda, Kaveh Hassani, Aditya Modi, Daniel R. Jiang, Yonathan Efroni