测试自动生成标签在多语言间的泛化能力,发现标签对非主流书写形式失效。
How Far Do Auto-Interpretation Labels Generalize: A Controlled Study Across Languages, Scripts, and Rewordings
- 利用塞尔维亚语拉丁与西里尔字母的确定性转换,控制变量测试标签泛化
- 跨语言标签错误率最高达英语的4倍,西里尔字母比拉丁字母更易出错
- 深层网络中标签失效更严重,但系统不提示风险,适合模型可解释性研究者
稀疏自编码器(SAE)特征正被广泛用于解释语言模型,其自然语言标签是理解特征含义的主要接口。本文探讨这些标签是否具备泛化能力:同一概念在不同语言、文字和表达方式下,标签是否仍准确?以塞尔维亚语双文字体系为实验场景——同一种语言通过确定性转换使用拉丁与西里尔字母——我们发现,相同内容在不同书写形式下激活的SAE特征集有显著重叠(平均Jaccard指数0.39,随机基线0.13,峰值0.57),表明存在真正的跨语言语义特征。然而,自动标注的标签未能同步跟进:描述语义的特征在塞尔维亚语中误判率高达英语的4倍,且西里尔字母的误判率高于拉丁字母——尽管两者为确定性互译关系。这一差距随网络深度增加而扩大,但标签本身未提供任何失效提示。结果表明,自动标签可能反映的是模型对常见输入的表现,而非概念本身。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Sparse autoencoder (SAE) features are increasingly used to interpret language models, with auto-generated natural-language labels serving as the primary interface for understanding what each feature represents. We ask whether these labels generalize: does a feature labeled for a concept actually track that concept across languages and scripts? Using Serbian digraphia as a controlled testbed--the same language written in both Latin and Cyrillic via deterministic transliteration--we first find that SAE feature sets activated by the same content in different languages, scripts, and wordings share substantial overlap (mean Jaccard 0.39 vs. 0.13 random baseline, peaking at 0.57), suggesting genuine cross-lingual semantic features. We then test whether auto-interpretation labels keep pace. They often do not: features whose labels describe semantic content miss the same meaning in Serbian up to 4x more often thanwithin English, and miss Serbian Cyrillic more than Serbian Latin--two scripts that are deterministic transliterations of each other--suggesting the failures align with how well each form is represented in training. The gap grows with network depth, yet the labels give no indication that they fail. These results suggest that auto-interpretation labels may reflect a feature's behavior on well-represented inputs rather than the concept itself.
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