Explaining Large Language Models with gSMILE

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Dehghani, Zeinab, Akram, Mohammed Naveed, Aslansefat, Koorosh, Khan, Adil, Papadopoulos, Yiannis
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Dehghani, Zeinab
Akram, Mohammed Naveed
Aslansefat, Koorosh
Khan, Adil
Papadopoulos, Yiannis
author_facet Dehghani, Zeinab
Akram, Mohammed Naveed
Aslansefat, Koorosh
Khan, Adil
Papadopoulos, Yiannis
contents Large Language Models (LLMs) such as GPT, LLaMA, and Claude achieve remarkable performance in text generation but remain opaque in their decision-making processes, limiting trust and accountability in high-stakes applications. We present gSMILE (generative SMILE), a model-agnostic, perturbation-based framework for token-level interpretability in LLMs. Extending the SMILE methodology, gSMILE uses controlled prompt perturbations, Wasserstein distance metrics, and weighted linear surrogates to identify input tokens with the most significant impact on the output. This process enables the generation of intuitive heatmaps that visually highlight influential tokens and reasoning paths. We evaluate gSMILE across leading LLMs (OpenAI's gpt-3.5-turbo-instruct, Meta's LLaMA 3.1 Instruct Turbo, and Anthropic's Claude 2.1) using attribution fidelity, attribution consistency, attribution stability, attribution faithfulness, and attribution accuracy as metrics. Results show that gSMILE delivers reliable human-aligned attributions, with Claude 2.1 excelling in attention fidelity and GPT-3.5 achieving the highest output consistency. These findings demonstrate gSMILE's ability to balance model performance and interpretability, enabling more transparent and trustworthy AI systems.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_21657
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Explaining Large Language Models with gSMILE
Dehghani, Zeinab
Akram, Mohammed Naveed
Aslansefat, Koorosh
Khan, Adil
Papadopoulos, Yiannis
Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
Large Language Models (LLMs) such as GPT, LLaMA, and Claude achieve remarkable performance in text generation but remain opaque in their decision-making processes, limiting trust and accountability in high-stakes applications. We present gSMILE (generative SMILE), a model-agnostic, perturbation-based framework for token-level interpretability in LLMs. Extending the SMILE methodology, gSMILE uses controlled prompt perturbations, Wasserstein distance metrics, and weighted linear surrogates to identify input tokens with the most significant impact on the output. This process enables the generation of intuitive heatmaps that visually highlight influential tokens and reasoning paths. We evaluate gSMILE across leading LLMs (OpenAI's gpt-3.5-turbo-instruct, Meta's LLaMA 3.1 Instruct Turbo, and Anthropic's Claude 2.1) using attribution fidelity, attribution consistency, attribution stability, attribution faithfulness, and attribution accuracy as metrics. Results show that gSMILE delivers reliable human-aligned attributions, with Claude 2.1 excelling in attention fidelity and GPT-3.5 achieving the highest output consistency. These findings demonstrate gSMILE's ability to balance model performance and interpretability, enabling more transparent and trustworthy AI systems.
title Explaining Large Language Models with gSMILE
topic Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.21657