arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 18

Sampling Reveals Style: Unsupervised, Training-Free Discovery of Prompt-Conditional Stylistic Axes in LLM Activations

The paper introduces a training‑free method for uncovering prompt‑conditional stylistic axes in large language models (LLMs). By repeatedly sampling completions of a single prompt at high temperature and applying Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to the pooled hidden activations, the authors automatically label the resulting axes using the extreme (pole) generations. Validation against 245 human‑elicited stylistic annotations shows that, for the Qwen‑3.5‑4B‑Instruct model, the top two axes align with human dimensions with 72.8% precision and 43.6% macro‑recall, and 75.6% of validity ratings confirm the axes’ polar generations, while other models exhibit varying degrees of discoverability.

By Ajit Mallavarapu, Ziwei Gu
arXiv Machine Learning
Oct 23

Measuring, Localizing, and Reducing the AI-Like Writing Style of Post-Trained LLMs

The paper investigates how post‑training of language models introduces or amplifies an AI‑like writing style and whether this style has a localized internal signature. By comparing human text, base‑model outputs, and aligned‑model outputs with matched human‑source prefixes, the authors find that aligned generations are less similar to human corpora and more easily detected as AI‑like. They propose PASTA, a training‑free method that estimates a post‑training alignment signature from residual contrasts and ablates the corresponding direction during decoding, reducing detection rates across multiple models and detectors while preserving relevance and coherence.

By Aniket Anand, Janvijay Singh, Zhewei Sun, Dilek Hakkani-T\"ur, Nick Feamster
arXiv AI
Sep 24

Beyond Poetry: Can Large Language Models Generate Classical Arabic Maqamat?

arXiv:2609. 28245v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) have shown strong performance in creative text generation, yet their ability to produce culturally grounded and stylistically constrained literary forms remains underexplored.

By AbdulRahman A. Morsy (Department of Computer Science, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, George Washington University, Washington DC, United States), Aya Zirikly (Department of Computer Science, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, George Washington University, Washington DC, United States, Center for Speech and Language Processing, Whiting School of Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore MD, United States)