arXiv AI By Linqian Wu, Diaoxuan He

Same Behavior, Different Mechanism: What Finite Experiments Can Certify About Integrated Information

Read the original on arXiv AI →

The paper investigates when the integrated information measure ζ (phi) can be reliably identified from finite, noisy experiments in small stochastic networks. It shows that even identical input‑output behavior can hide large differences in phi, that partial recordings impose hard precision limits, and that phi is highly sensitive to infinitesimal mechanism changes, often misreported by surrogate models. The authors prove that a lower bound on phi can be certified with controlled experiments and quantify the sample size needed for statistical confidence.

Machine-generated by The Flow from the publisher's headline and feed description — not written or checked by a human. The full article lives at arXiv AI.

arXiv Computation and Language
Sep 18

Message capacity and claim wording set the transition points of collective truth-finding in language-model networks

The study investigates how limited reading capacity and claim wording influence consensus outcomes in language‑model networks. By modeling message capacity as the number of messages an agent reads, the authors show that when agents read fewer than about 6.4 messages on average, a wrong consensus becomes unreachable. However, the wording of a claim—its inherent threshold—can override this effect, leading to incorrect consensus even when most agents start correct.

By Makoto Fukushima
arXiv Computation and Language
Sep 4

How Much Do Circuits Tell Us? Measuring the Consistency and Specificity of Language Model Circuits

The study investigates the consistency and specificity of language model circuits across six tasks and five models, focusing on component-level (attention heads and MLP blocks) and neuron-level circuits. Component-level circuits are highly consistent and causally important but lack task specificity, as ablating a circuit for one task similarly harms performance on other tasks. Neuron-level circuits show higher task specificity but lower consistency, with overlap mainly between closely related tasks. The analysis of Llama‑3.2‑3B reveals that shared components are predominantly MLP blocks, while attention heads act as generic attention‑sink heads.

By Michael Li, Nishant Subramani
arXiv AI
Sep 10

Causal Attribution for Agentic Decisions: Estimators, Coupling, and a Traceability Specification

The paper presents a framework for causal attribution in agentic AI systems, outlining estimators and conditions where they fail. It distinguishes between marginal total effects and common‑random‑number total effects, introduces a natural direct effect under pinned downstreams, and derives a coupling method to keep direct effects estimable. The authors also propose a traceability specification to meet upcoming regulatory requirements for high‑risk AI systems.

By Ajay Pravin Mahale (Hochschule Trier)