LLM Output Homogenization is Task Dependent Article Swipe
Shomik Jain
,
Jack Lanchantin
,
Maximilian Nickel
,
Karen Ullrich
,
A. N. Wilson
,
Jamelle Watson-Daniels
·
YOU?
·
· 2025
· Open Access
·
· DOI: https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2509.21267
YOU?
·
· 2025
· Open Access
·
· DOI: https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.2509.21267
A large language model can be less helpful if it exhibits output response homogenization. But whether two responses are considered homogeneous, and whether such homogenization is problematic, both depend on the task category. For instance, in objective math tasks, we often expect no variation in the final answer but anticipate variation in the problem-solving strategy. Whereas, for creative writing tasks, we may expect variation in key narrative components (e.g. plot, genre, setting, etc), beyond the vocabulary or embedding diversity produced by temperature-sampling. Previous work addressing output homogenization often fails to conceptualize diversity in a task-dependent way. We address this gap in the literature directly by making the following contributions. (1) We present a task taxonomy comprised of eight task categories that each have distinct concepts of output homogenization. (2) We introduce task-anchored functional diversity to better evaluate output homogenization. (3) We propose a task-anchored sampling technique that increases functional diversity for task categories where homogenization is undesired, while preserving it where it is desired. (4) We challenge the perceived existence of a diversity-quality trade-off by increasing functional diversity while maintaining response quality. Overall, we demonstrate how task dependence improves the evaluation and mitigation of output homogenization.
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- http://arxiv.org/abs/2509.21267
- https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.21267
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LLM Output Homogenization is Task DependentWork title
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2025Year of publication
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2025-09-25Full publication date if available
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Shomik Jain, Jack Lanchantin, Maximilian Nickel, Karen Ullrich, A. N. Wilson, Jamelle Watson-DanielsList of authors in order
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https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.21267Publisher landing page
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https://arxiv.org/pdf/2509.21267Direct link to full text PDF
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greenOpen access status per OpenAlex
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0Total citation count in OpenAlex
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