How much of a measured AI preference is the model, and how much is the instrument?

arXiv:2608.23641 · cs.AI · Submitted 2026-08-24 · Read on arXiv

cs.AI

Submitted: 2026-08-24

Updated: 2026-08-24

Terminology

• Provenance — 5× in this paper · explained in 3 episodes
• Consistency — 1× in this paper · explained in 3 episodes
• Generalizability — 1× in this paper · explained in 6 episodes
• Large Language Models (LLMs) — 1× in this paper · explained in 6 episodes

Sources

• Can LLMs make trade-offs involving stipulated pain and pleasure states?
• Utility Engineering: Analyzing and Controlling Emergent Value Systems in AIs
• Beyond Mimicry: Preference Coherence in LLMs
• Probing the Preferences of a Language Model: Integrating Verbal and Behavioral Tests of AI Welfare
• LLMs Contain Multitudes: How Deployment Context Reshapes Model-Level Preferences and Values

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