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ZENODO
Preprint . 2026
License: CC BY
Data sources: ZENODO
ZENODO
Preprint . 2026
License: CC BY
Data sources: Datacite
ZENODO
Preprint . 2026
License: CC BY
Data sources: Datacite
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Three Measurable Failure Modes of Large Language Models

Structure of the Error Distribution in Autoregressive Stochastic Systems
Authors: Hubka, Marek;

Three Measurable Failure Modes of Large Language Models

Abstract

Human language is inherently ambiguous - not a deterministic code but an ensemble of overlapping meanings whose disambiguation depends on context that is often incomplete or absent. A system that processes natural language must therefore be probabilistic, not by architectural choice but by mathematical necessity. This paper argues that the resulting uncertainty has structure: what the field calls hallucinations is not one phenomenon but three structurally distinct failure modes of this probabilistic nature, each with a different causal origin, a different measurable signature, and a different class of solutions. Mode 1 (autoregressive reinforcement) is the self-consistent wrong trajectory produced when an error contaminates the model's own conditioning context. Mode 2 (confabulation) is fluent generation produced from parameter directions that received no training signal - the null space of the weight matrix. Mode 3 (irreducible uncertainty) is the correct response of a calibrated probabilistic system to a genuinely ambiguous query. Each mode has a computable quantitative metric: correction sensitivity $(\mathsf{CS})$, dimensional excess $(\mathsf{DE})$, and output entropy $(\mathsf{H}_{\mathrm{out}})$. The three measurements rest on a single coding-theoretic construction, the syndrome table $S = \mathcal{N}(\bar{J} \cdot V)^\top$, whose full derivation is in the companion paper "A Syndrome Algebra for Differentiable Parametric Systems". A controlled experimental series on a synthetic LSTM ($D=256$, $L=10$, six fixed seeds) confirms the framework end to end. The three metrics separate cleanly: the $\mathsf{CS}$ gap between known and unknown domains narrows monotonically from $0.273 \pm 0.095$ at $k=1$ to $0.067 \pm 0.037$ at $k=10$. The Pearson correlation $r(\mathsf{DE}, \mathsf{CS}_{\mathrm{unknown}}) = 0.9896$ across k predicts out-of-domain failure from weight matrix alone. Causal localisation of an injected perturbation reaches $100\%$ accuracy over $180$ trials with a pre/post residual ratio of approximately $2\times 10^8$. Oracle correction is exact (cosine $1.000000$ over $36,000$ trials). A direct comparison of multicellular specialists against monolithic generalists shows the Singleton-bound multicellular advantage grows from $0.158 \pm 0.049$ at $N=5$ to $0.310 \pm 0.054$ at $N=10$ in $\mathsf{CS}$ gap, empirically justifying the modular hierarchy. Additional notes: This preprint is accompanied by the mathematical paper A Syndrome Algebra for Differentiable Parametric Systems (see related identifiers). Code and data are available at the linked GitHub repository. Model weights are not included due to size; they are regenerated deterministically from the provided scripts and canonical seeds.

Keywords

error correction, Jacobian variance, Gram metric, modular architecture, large language models, hallucinations, LSTM, syndrome algebra, Singleton bound, Hamming Bound, ML reliability

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selected citations
These citations are derived from selected sources.
This is an alternative to the "Influence" indicator, which also reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Citations provided by BIP!
popularity
This indicator reflects the "current" impact/attention (the "hype") of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Popularity provided by BIP!
influence
This indicator reflects the overall/total impact of an article in the research community at large, based on the underlying citation network (diachronically).
BIP!Influence provided by BIP!
impulse
This indicator reflects the initial momentum of an article directly after its publication, based on the underlying citation network.
BIP!Impulse provided by BIP!
0
Average
Average
Average