arXiv:2605.09195cs.AI2026-05

大模型会忘记过时信息,这种遗忘在模型内部有独立的几何方向。

The Geometry of Forgetting: Temporal Knowledge Drift as an Independent Axis in LLM Representations

论文配图:The Geometry of Forgetting: Temporal Knowledge Drift as an Independent Axis in LLM Representations
图 1 · 摘自论文原文
  • 发现时间漂移是残差流中与正确性和不确定性正交的独立方向。
  • 直接用漂移标签训练的线性探测器性能达AUROC 0.83–0.95,其他方法仅接近随机(0.49–0.57)。
  • 揭示了模型内部知识状态可被探测,适合研究模型时效性与幻觉机制的人参考。

大型语言模型会自信地输出过时信息,现有方法无法检测。我们发现这并非工程缺陷,而是结构问题:时间漂移(事实是否在训练后发生变化)在残差流中以与正确性、不确定性正交的几何方向被编码。任何基于正确性或不确定性的方法因此天生无法察觉漂移。我们在六种指令微调模型上验证了这一现象。直接对漂移标签训练的线性探测器获得AUROC 0.83–0.95;基于标记熵、语义熵、CCS和SAPLMA的方法均仅在随机水平(0.49–0.57)。五项测试证实几何正交性:权重余弦值≤0.14,得分相关系数≤0.20,双向零空间投影差异≤0.008,迭代零空间投影(k=10)及均值差异解耦。机制上,MLP检索电路对过时回忆和虚构行为产生相同动态(相关系数r > 0.81,六模型),解释为何输出置信度无法区分二者。跨截止实验保持输入不变,仅改变模型:探测器仅在训练时间早于事实变化的模型上激活(P(A>B) = 0.975–0.998,十二组模型对),确认其读取的是模型内部知识状态而非输入特征。代码与数据集将公开发布。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Large language models confidently produce outdated answers, and no existing method can detect them. We show this is not an engineering failure but a structural one: temporal drift, whether a stored fact has changed since training, is encoded as a direction in the residual stream geometrically orthogonal to both correctness and uncertainty. Any method operating on correctness or uncertainty signals is therefore blind to drift by construction. We verify this across six instruction-tuned models. A linear probe trained directly on drift labels achieves AUROC $0.83$--$0.95$; methods based on token entropy, semantic entropy, CCS, and SAPLMA all remain near chance ($0.49$--$0.57$). Five tests confirm the geometric orthogonality: weight cosines ($|\cos| \leq 0.14$), score correlations ($|r| \leq 0.20$), bidirectional null-space projection ($|Δ| \leq 0.008$), iterative null-space projection with $k{=}10$, and difference-of-means dissociation. Mechanistically, the MLP retrieval circuit produces identical dynamics for stale recall and confabulation ($r > 0.81$, six models), explaining why output confidence cannot separate them. A cross-cutoff experiment holds inputs constant and varies only the model: the probe fires on the model whose training predates the fact's transition and stays silent otherwise ($P(A{>}B) = 0.975$--$0.998$, twelve model pairs), confirming it reads model-internal knowledge state rather than input properties. Our code and datasets will be publicly released.

模型记忆时间漂移几何分析大模型

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