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CorrSteer: Generation-Time LLM Steering via Correlated Sparse Autoencoder Features

Cho, Seonglae, Wu, Zekun, Koshiyama, Adriano

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

Sparse Autoencoders (SAEs) can extract interpretable features from large language models (LLMs) without supervision. However, their effectiveness in downstream steering tasks is limited by the requirement for contrastive datasets or large activation storage. To address these limitations, we propose CorrSteer, which selects features by correlating sample correctness with SAE activations from generated tokens at inference time. This approach uses only inference-time activations to extract more relevant features, thereby reducing spurious correlations. It also obtains steering coefficients from average activations, automating the entire pipeline. Our method shows improved task performance on QA, bias mitigation, jailbreaking prevention, and reasoning benchmarks on Gemma-2 2B and LLaMA-3.1 8B, notably achieving a +3.3% improvement in MMLU performance with 4000 samples and a +27.2% improvement in HarmBench with only 108 samples. Selected features demonstrate semantically meaningful patterns aligned with each task's requirements, revealing the underlying capabilities that drive performance. Our work establishes correlation-based selection as an effective and scalable approach for automated SAE steering across language model applications.



Understanding Tool-Integrated Reasoning

Lin, Heng, Xu, Zhongwen

arXiv.org Machine Learning

We study why Tool-Integrated Reasoning (TIR) makes Large Language Models (LLMs) more capable. While LLMs integrated with tools like Python code interpreters show great promise, a principled theory explaining why this paradigm is effective has been missing. This work provides the first formal proof that TIR fundamentally expands an LLM's capabilities. We demonstrate that tools enable a strict expansion of the model's empirical and feasible support, breaking the capability ceiling of pure-text models by unlocking problem-solving strategies that are otherwise impossible or intractably verbose. To guide model behavior without compromising training stability and performance, we also introduce Advantage Shaping Policy Optimization (ASPO), a novel algorithm that directly modifies the advantage function to guide the policy behavior. We conduct comprehensive experiments on challenging mathematical benchmarks, leveraging a Python interpreter as the external tool. Our results show that the TIR model decisively outperforms its pure-text counterpart on the pass@k metric. Crucially, this advantage is not confined to computationally-intensive problems but extends to those requiring significant abstract insight. We further identify the emergent cognitive patterns that illustrate how models learn to think with tools. Finally, we report improved tool usage behavior with early code invocation and much more interactive turns with ASPO. Overall, our work provides the first principled explanation for TIR's success, shifting the focus from the mere fact that tools work to why and how they enable more powerful reasoning.


dab1263d1e6a88c9ba5e7e294def5e8b-Supplemental.pdf

Neural Information Processing Systems

Supplementary Material for "T ensor Completion Made Practical" Run Jennrich's algorithm (see Section F.2.1) to decompose T Here we give an outline of the proof of Theorem 3.2. This is our main contribution. A robust analysis of Jennrich's algorithm implies that we can then estimate the rank one See Section F and Section G for details. C.1 Basic Facts We use the following notation: The following claim gives us a simple relation for this. C.4 Concentration Inequalities Claim C.8. Say we have real numbers γ x In particular we will prove Theorem B.1.


How Overconfidence in Initial Choices and Underconfidence Under Criticism Modulate Change of Mind in Large Language Models

Kumaran, Dharshan, Fleming, Stephen M, Markeeva, Larisa, Heyward, Joe, Banino, Andrea, Mathur, Mrinal, Pascanu, Razvan, Osindero, Simon, de Martino, Benedetto, Velickovic, Petar, Patraucean, Viorica

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

Large language models (LLMs) exhibit strikingly conflicting behaviors: they can appear steadfastly overconfident in their initial answers whilst at the same time being prone to excessive doubt when challenged. To investigate this apparent paradox, we developed a novel experimental paradigm, exploiting the unique ability to obtain confidence estimates from LLMs without creating memory of their initial judgments -- something impossible in human participants. We show that LLMs -- Gemma 3, GPT4o and o1-preview -- exhibit a pronounced choice-supportive bias that reinforces and boosts their estimate of confidence in their answer, resulting in a marked resistance to change their mind. We further demonstrate that LLMs markedly overweight inconsistent compared to consistent advice, in a fashion that deviates qualitatively from normative Bayesian updating. Finally, we demonstrate that these two mechanisms -- a drive to maintain consistency with prior commitments and hypersensitivity to contradictory feedback -- parsimoniously capture LLM behavior in a different domain. Together, these findings furnish a mechanistic account of LLM confidence that explains both their stubbornness and excessive sensitivity to criticism.


Toward Equitable Access: Leveraging Crowdsourced Reviews to Investigate Public Perceptions of Health Resource Accessibility

Xue, Zhaoqian, Liu, Guanhong, Wei, Kai, Zhang, Chong, Zeng, Qingcheng, Hu, Songhua, Hua, Wenyue, Fan, Lizhou, Zhang, Yongfeng, Li, Lingyao

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

Access to health resources is a critical determinant of public well-being and societal resilience, particularly during public health crises when demand for medical services and preventive care surges. However, disparities in accessibility persist across demographic and geographic groups, raising concerns about equity. Traditional survey methods often fall short due to limitations in coverage, cost, and timeliness. This study leverages crowdsourced data from Google Maps reviews, applying advanced natural language processing techniques, specifically ModernBERT, to extract insights on public perceptions of health resource accessibility in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, we employ Partial Least Squares regression to examine the relationship between accessibility perceptions and key socioeconomic and demographic factors including political affiliation, racial composition, and educational attainment. Our findings reveal that public perceptions of health resource accessibility varied significantly across the U.S., with disparities peaking during the pandemic and slightly easing post-crisis. Political affiliation, racial demographics, and education levels emerged as key factors shaping these perceptions. These findings underscore the need for targeted interventions and policy measures to address inequities, fostering a more inclusive healthcare infrastructure that can better withstand future public health challenges.


Reinforcement learning-based statistical search strategy for an axion model from flavor

Nishimura, Satsuki, Miyao, Coh, Otsuka, Hajime

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

We propose a reinforcement learning-based search strategy to explore new physics beyond the Standard Model. The reinforcement learning, which is one of machine learning methods, is a powerful approach to find model parameters with phenomenological constraints. As a concrete example, we focus on a minimal axion model with a global $U(1)$ flavor symmetry. Agents of the learning succeed in finding $U(1)$ charge assignments of quarks and leptons solving the flavor and cosmological puzzles in the Standard Model, and find more than 150 realistic solutions for the quark sector taking renormalization effects into account. For the solutions found by the reinforcement learning-based analysis, we discuss the sensitivity of future experiments for the detection of an axion which is a Nambu-Goldstone boson of the spontaneously broken $U(1)$. We also examine how fast the reinforcement learning-based searching method finds the best discrete parameters in comparison with conventional optimization methods. In conclusion, the efficient parameter search based on the reinforcement learning-based strategy enables us to perform a statistical analysis of the vast parameter space associated with the axion model from flavor.


Explaining Veracity Predictions with Evidence Summarization: A Multi-Task Model Approach

Cekinel, Recep Firat, Karagoz, Pinar

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

The rapid dissemination of misinformation through social media increased the importance of automated fact-checking. Furthermore, studies on what deep neural models pay attention to when making predictions have increased in recent years. While significant progress has been made in this field, it has not yet reached a level of reasoning comparable to human reasoning. To address these gaps, we propose a multi-task explainable neural model for misinformation detection. Specifically, this work formulates an explanation generation process of the model's veracity prediction as a text summarization problem. Additionally, the performance of the proposed model is discussed on publicly available datasets and the findings are evaluated with related studies.