LLM回测中的时间泄漏问题被误判,真实技能难以区分。
Temporal Leakage in LLM Backtesting: Measurement, Validation, and Adjusted Scores

- 用训练截止后得分对比判断泄漏无效,因模型对近期事件天然更熟悉
- 引入外部信息构建对照组,可准确识别并校正泄漏影响
- 适用于评估大模型性能的审计场景,尤其关注高风险回测结果
标准的LLM回测污染检测方法是比对训练截止前后的得分。我们发现该方法无实际意义:四个主流模型在它们不可能记忆的问题上(所有答案在截止后才揭晓)均未通过检验。原因是结构性的——模型对截止时间附近的信息天然更了解,导致‘近似’现象伪装成泄漏。我们证明,仅靠被动回测无法将这种现象与真实能力区分开。测量泄漏需要回测之外的信息。本文提供两种方式:已知截止点可定位边界泄漏;匹配的干净对照组可全局识别泄漏,并生成调整后的得分。我们还揭示泄漏集中在出人意料且训练数据覆盖充分的结果上,部分记忆被过度奖励。通过在孪生模型中植入泄漏,验证了估计器能准确恢复注入量并在干净问题上返回零值。部署于前沿模型后,该方法检测到一个局部泄漏信号,在审计效能极限下,确认五个看似优势的模型其实仅靠时间接近性而已。回测不必废弃,只需一个可信参照基准。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
The standard check for contamination in LLM backtests is simple: compare scores before and after the training cutoff. We show this check is uninformative. Four flagship models fail it on questions they cannot have memorized: every scored question resolved after their cutoffs. The reason is structural. Models legitimately know more about times near their cutoff, so recency mimics leakage, and we prove no passive backtest can separate the two from genuine skill. Measurement, not just detection, requires information from outside the backtest. We supply it in two forms. A known cutoff identifies leakage at the boundary; a matched clean control identifies it globally and yields a leakage-adjusted score. We also derive where leakage hides: it concentrates on outcomes that surprised the crowd and were well covered in training, and partial memorization is disproportionately rewarded. We validate the estimators against ground truth by planting leakage in twin models, where they recover the injected dose and return null on clean questions. Deployed on frontier models, they detect one cutoff-localized signature and, at the audit's power floor, clear five models whose apparent advantages were recency alone. Backtests need not be discarded; they need one defensible reference.
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