arXiv AI

TUX: Measuring Human--AI Tacit Understanding

The paper introduces TUX, a Tacit Understanding Index that measures how similarly humans and large language models (LLMs) place concepts along subjective spectra in a task inspired by the game Wavelength. Using 241 human participants and 200 profile-conditioned LLM agents across four models, the study finds that human–agent pairs with similar traits achieve higher TUX scores, indicating that tacit alignment is linked to person-level characteristics. Regression analyses show that richer predictor sets—including individual traits, decision-making styles, and confidence—improve the explainability of TUX beyond simple trait-distance baselines.

arXiv Computation and Language
Oct 23

On the Behavioral Traits of LLM Agents

The paper introduces A-B-D, a method that infers personality traits of large language model agents from their behavioral data, combining functional actions and linguistic outputs across 345,667 real-world trajectories of 80 models. After filtering for stability and discriminability, 79 features are reduced to six reliable factors—two functional and four linguistic—revealing differences such as Claude‑Sonnet‑4.6’s planfulness versus GPT‑5.5’s low energy. The study also demonstrates a weak correlation between these inferred traits and agents’ self-reported Big Five scores, highlighting a knowledge‑action gap.

By Haokai Zhao, Jie Gao, Yunze Xiao, Xintao Wang, Weihao Xuan, Aditya Joshi, Mark Dredze, Jen-tse Huang
arXiv AI
Jun 9

Aligned but Not Partner-Specific: Distinguishing How Multimodal LLM Agents Succeed in Reference Games Without Human-Like Conventions

arXiv:2606. 08081v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Repeated reference games test whether interlocutors replace their initially long descriptions with shorter, partner-specific conventions grounded in shared interaction history.

By Po-Ya Angela Wang, Chinmaya Mishra, Asl{\i} \"Ozy\"urek, Paula Rubio-Fern\'andez, Esam Ghaleb
arXiv AI
Oct 9

Predicting Alignment Generalization with Value Representations

The paper introduces the task of predicting alignment generalization, which measures how fine‑tuning a language model to follow a specific value affects its behavior across a broad set of other values. Through a large‑scale study of 66 values, the authors show that representations derived from model activations when applying values in context outperform textual description‑based methods, achieving a correlation of 0.45 versus 0.05. They further demonstrate that these representations can predict downstream robustness and help construct a taxonomy of LLM values based on empirical generalization dynamics.

By Andy Liu, Mehar Bhatia, Karolina Stanczak, Mona Diab, Vered Shwartz, Daniel Fried
arXiv AI
Sep 21

Talking Past the Machine: Morality, Politeness, and Alignment in Human-AI Dialogue

The paper examines how conversational AI, specifically ChatGPT, displays aspects of cooperative dialogue such as morality, politeness, and alignment compared to human-human conversations. Using over 26,000 multi‑turn dialogues and mixed‑effects modeling, the authors find that AI mimics the surface features of cooperation—like warmth and hedging—yet lacks the underlying social architecture that drives mutual adaptation. Key findings include a dissociation between AI’s moral output and human negotiation, a decline in linguistic convergence, and a reversal of typical human accommodation mechanisms when interacting with AI.

By Marina Mitiaeva, Lu Xiao
arXiv AI
Sep 16

Do LLMs Have Values? A Quantitative Analysis and Alignment Framework for Values in Large Language Models

The paper investigates whether large language models (LLMs) possess intrinsic value systems and how to quantify and align them. By projecting responses from 106 LLMs and 95,000 human survey profiles into a shared sociological space, the authors confirm that LLMs do have values, though these values form a concentrated, idealized core rather than mirroring human diversity. They introduce the Prior-Environment-Cognition (PEC) framework to mathematically define value expression and propose an adaptive Alignment Prescription that identifies minimal interventions—ranging from prompts to targeted parameter updates—to steer LLM values efficiently without harming general performance.

By Keqing Zhang, Jingyu Chen, Yufan Liu, Yongqiang Zhu, Nai Ding, Lai Jiang, Congyan Lang, Bing Li, Weiming Hu
arXiv AI
Oct 2

Aligned but Not Partner-Specific: How Multimodal LLM Agents Succeed in Reference Games Without Forming Conceptual Pacts

The paper investigates whether multimodal large language model (LLM) agents form partner‑specific conceptual pacts during repeated reference games. By comparing real agent dyads with a novel pseudo‑dyad baseline that preserves task structure but removes shared partner history, the authors show that humans compress descriptions and align labels through entrainment, whereas agents produce verbose, fixed‑effort descriptions with near‑ceiling label overlap regardless of partner. Thus, LLMs succeed in coordination without forming compact, history‑dependent referring expressions typical of human dialogue.

By Po-Ya Angela Wang, Chinmaya Mishra, Asl{\i} \"Ozy\"urek, Paula Rubio-Fern\'andez, Esam Ghaleb
arXiv Computation and Language
Oct 16

VALCON: Benchmarking and Enhancing Value Consistency in Large Language Models via Dual-Role Variation

VALCON introduces a role-driven framework to benchmark and improve value consistency in large language models (LLMs) by evaluating how well an LLM’s generative outputs align with its evaluative judgments when the same model alternates between generator and evaluator roles. The framework creates three benchmark suites—VAB-Consistency, VAB-Boundary, and VAB-Challenge—using dual-role variation to expose hidden value discrepancies. Experiments across 28 LLMs reveal widespread cross-role inconsistency, and mechanistic probing identifies a role-dependent representational decoupling; a representation-directed intervention is then proposed to mitigate these failures, establishing value consistency as a distinct alignment dimension.

By Junru Wu, Jingting Zheng, Yuqi Ren, Deyi Xiong