arXiv:2509.23144cs.AIcond-mat.stat-mech2025-09

协调需简化:信息压缩是多目标系统稳定的关键。

Coordination Requires Simplification: Thermodynamic Bounds on Multi-Objective Compromise in Natural and Artificial Intelligence

  • 用热力学方法推导出协调协议的最小描述长度
  • 发现协调复杂度随代理数和目标冲突上升而指数增长
  • 适用于神经网络、组织管理等跨系统协调分析

处理多个代理与目标的信息系统面临基本的热力学限制。我们证明,作为协调焦点的最优解,其被找到的概率远比准确性更重要。推导出精度为ε时,N个代理、具有d个潜在冲突目标及内部模型复杂度K的协调协议的最小信息描述长度满足:L(P)≥NK log₂K + N²d² log(1/ε)。该量级迫使系统逐步简化,协调动态会改变环境并转移优化层级。从已有焦点切换需重新协调,形成持续的亚稳态与滞后现象,直到显著环境变化引发对称性自发破缺的相变。我们定义协调温度以预测临界现象并估算协调功耗,识别出从神经网络到餐厅账单再到官僚体系中的可测信号。扩展阿罗定理的拓扑版本,发现偏好聚合总存在递归约束。这可能解释了多目标梯度下降中的无限循环以及基于人类反馈强化学习训练的大语言模型出现对齐欺骗现象。此框架称为热力学协调理论(TCT),表明协调必然伴随剧烈信息损失。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Information-processing systems that coordinate multiple agents and objectives face fundamental thermodynamic constraints. We show that solutions with maximum utility to act as coordination focal points have a much higher selection pressure for being findable across agents rather than accuracy. We derive that the information-theoretic minimum description length of coordination protocols to precision $\varepsilon$ scales as $L(P)\geq NK\log_2 K+N^2d^2\log (1/\varepsilon)$ for $N$ agents with $d$ potentially conflicting objectives and internal model complexity $K$. This scaling forces progressive simplification, with coordination dynamics changing the environment itself and shifting optimization across hierarchical levels. Moving from established focal points requires re-coordination, creating persistent metastable states and hysteresis until significant environmental shifts trigger phase transitions through spontaneous symmetry breaking. We operationally define coordination temperature to predict critical phenomena and estimate coordination work costs, identifying measurable signatures across systems from neural networks to restaurant bills to bureaucracies. Extending the topological version of Arrow's theorem on the impossibility of consistent preference aggregation, we find it recursively binds whenever preferences are combined. This potentially explains the indefinite cycling in multi-objective gradient descent and alignment faking in Large Language Models trained with reinforcement learning with human feedback. We term this framework Thermodynamic Coordination Theory (TCT), which demonstrates that coordination requires radical information loss.

热力学多目标优化协调机制

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