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Self-Evaluation can Help Agents Meet Social Expectations

2025· article· W4416184308 on OpenAlexaff
Parisa Salmani, Peter R. Lewis

Bibliographic record

Venuenot available
Typearticle
Language
FieldComputer Science
TopicExplainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI)
Canadian institutionsOntario Tech University
Fundersnot available
KeywordsReflection (computer programming)Test (biology)SurpriseProduct (mathematics)ArchitectureSociotechnical system

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

As artificial intelligence (AI) and multi-agent systems (MAS) become increasingly advanced and integrated into real-world applications, they are frequently used for content generation, problem-solving, and interactive communication. However, these systems still lack reflective capabilities, the ability to self-evaluate and reason about their own decisions. In particular, large language models (LLMs) often exhibit surface-level reflection that is more a product of linguistic prediction than reasoning. In this paper, we implement a case study on a recently proposed architecture designed to equip AI systems with reflective and self-evaluation capabilities. We implement and evaluate this architecture using a widely accessible LLM, Llama3, as the test bed and compare its baseline performance with the same model enhanced by this reflective architecture. To test the proposed system's ability to navigate social norms, we designed a normsensitive scenario involving a surprise birthday party. The model was prompted with 30 realistic questions that the guest of honor might ask, and its responses were evaluated across four metrics. The self-evaluator module is implemented using a second LLM to assess whether the base model's response aligns with defined norms and expectations. If not, the prompt is revised and reevaluated in an iterative loop. Experimental results show that this reflective setup improves the model's compliance with social and common-sense expectations, without requiring additional training or complex prompt engineering.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

How this classification was reachedexpand

Full frame machine prediction

Teacher imitation

Not calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.007
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.032
Version: metacan-v3-hybrid-931329e0061cValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesnone
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Simulation or modeling · Consensus signal: none
GenreCandidate signal: Empirical · Consensus signal: none
Teacher disagreement score0.007
Threshold uncertainty score0.037

Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0070.032
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0010.000
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0010.001
Bibliometrics0.0010.000
Science and technology studies0.0010.001
Scholarly communication0.0030.004
Open science0.0020.003
Research integrity0.0020.002
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0040.001

Machine scores (provisional)

The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.

Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.

Opus teacher head0.062
GPT teacher head0.355
Teacher spread0.293 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.

The models applied no category: nothing in the taxonomy fit this work.
Study designSimulation or modeling
Domainnot available
GenreEmpirical

How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".

Quick stats

Citations1
Published2025
Admission routes1
Has abstractyes

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