大模型缺乏持续记忆能力,推理时像反应式机器而非主动规划者。
On the Failure of Latent State Persistence in Large Language Models
- 设计三类实验检验模型内部状态持久性
- 多轮问答中出现概念漂移和自相矛盾
- 适合研究认知机制与模型可解释性的学者
尽管大型语言模型在推理方面表现优异,但其是否具备持续的潜在状态仍不清楚。能够维持并操作未显式表达的内部表征——类似于人类工作记忆——是复杂推理的核心。本文通过三项新实验形式化并量化了‘潜在状态持久性’(LSP)差距。首先,在数独猜谜游戏中,模型在独立查询间无法将概率质量集中于单一隐藏选项,违反基本概率原则。其次,在是/否问答游戏中,随着问题数量增加,模型出现“概念漂移”,因缺乏LSP导致不可避免的自我矛盾。最后,受数学心算启发,任务要求模型追踪隐藏变量的变换,结果揭示当初始状态未明确出现在上下文时,模型在变量绑定和状态演化上失败。综合来看,这些发现表明,大模型更像反应式的后见之明求解器,而非具备潜在状态持久性的主动规划者。本工作为评估内部表征保真度提供了框架,并突显了自回归变换器与类人认知之间的根本架构差异。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
While Large Language Models (LLMs) excel in reasoning, whether they can sustain persistent latent states remains under-explored. The capacity to maintain and manipulate unexpressed, internal representations-analogous to human working memory-is a cornerstone of complex reasoning. In this paper, we formalize and quantify the "Latent State Persistence" (LSP) gap through three novel experiments. First, we utilize a Number Guessing Game, demonstrating that across independent queries, LLMs fail to allocate probability mass to a singular hidden choice, violating a fundamental probabilistic principle. Second, we employ a Yes-No Game to show that as the number of questions increases, LLMs suffer from "concept drift," leading to inevitable self-contradictions due to the lack of LSP. Finally, inspired by Mathematical Mentalism, we task models with tracking transformations on hidden variables, revealing a failure in variable binding and state evolution when the initial state is not explicitly present in the context. Collectively, these findings suggest that LLMs function as reactive post-hoc solvers rather than proactive planners with LSP. Our work provides a framework for evaluating the fidelity of internal representations and highlights a fundamental architectural divergence between autoregressive transformers and human-like cognition.
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