提出基于一致性机制的可证明自提升框架,让模型自动优化且有理论保证。
Coherence Mechanisms for Provable Self-Improvement
- 用投影方法保持输出一致性,实现无监督自我改进。
- 理论证明改进过程单调收敛,降低期望Bregman散度。
- 适用于真实场景和弱约束条件,适合追求可靠AI系统的研究者。
自提升是大语言模型等智能系统的关键能力,使其能在无外部监督下优化行为与内部一致性。然而,现有方法多依赖经验启发式,缺乏形式化保障。本文提出基于‘一致性’概念的原理性自提升框架,要求模型在输入的任务不变变换下输出保持一致。通过基于投影的机制更新基线模型,在尽可能接近原行为的前提下实现一致性。我们提供了严格的理论保证,证明这些机制能实现单调改进,以期望Bregman散度下降为衡量标准。分析涵盖直接与两步投影方法,且在非可实现设定、有限样本分布及松弛的一致性约束下依然稳健。此外,我们建立了一个通用表征定理,表明任何具有类似可证明改进保障的机制都必须遵循一致性结构。这最终确立了在普遍改进需求下的刚性结果,将一致性正式确立为可证明自提升的根本且必要原则。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Self-improvement is a critical capability for large language models and other intelligent systems, enabling them to refine their behavior and internal consistency without external supervision. Despite its importance, prior approaches largely rely on empirical heuristics and lack formal guarantees. In this paper, we propose a principled framework for self-improvement based on the concept of \emph{coherence}, which requires that a model's outputs remain consistent under task-preserving transformations of the input. We formalize this concept using projection-based mechanisms that update a baseline model to be coherent while remaining as close as possible to its original behavior. We provide rigorous theoretical guarantees that these mechanisms achieve \emph{monotonic improvement}, measured by a reduction in expected Bregman divergence. Our analysis is comprehensive, covering both \emph{direct} and \emph{two-step} projection methods, and robustly extends these guarantees to non-realizable settings, empirical (finite-sample) distributions, and relaxed coherence constraints. Furthermore, we establish a general \emph{characterization theorem}, showing that any mechanism with similar provable improvement guarantees must inherently conform to a coherence-based structure. This culminates in rigidity results under the demand for universal improvement, establishing coherence as a fundamental and, in a formal sense, necessary principle for provable self-improvement.
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