Measuring Moral Inconsistencies in Large Language Models
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Abstract (arXiv)
A Large Language Model (LLM) is considered consistent if semantically equivalent prompts produce semantically equivalent responses. Despite recent advancements showcasing the impressive capabilities of LLMs in conversational systems, we show that even state-of-the-art LLMs are highly inconsistent in their generations, questioning their reliability. Prior research has tried to measure this with task-specific accuracy. However, this approach is unsuitable for moral scenarios, such as the trolley problem, with no "correct" answer. To address this issue, we propose a novel information-theoretic measure called Semantic Graph Entropy (SGE) to measure the consistency of an LLM in moral scenarios. We leverage "Rules of Thumb" (RoTs) to explain a model's decision-making strategies and further enhance our metric. Compared to existing consistency metrics, SGE correlates better with human judgments across five LLMs. In the future, we aim to investigate the root causes of LLM inconsistencies and propose improvements.
Key facts. Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 14 of its 24 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 26 Jan 2024.
Builds on
14 of 24 references.
References · 14
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Citing papers per year: 2025: 1; 2026: 2.
3 papers.
- 2026Large Language Model Reasoning Failurescited by 20
- 2025GCSAM: Gradient Centralized Sharpness Aware Minimizationcited by 0
- 2026Incoherent by Design? On the Moral Self-Consistency of LLMscited by 0
- 2026Incoherent by Design? On the Moral Self-Consistency of LLMs15 Aug 2026
- 2026Large Language Model Reasoning Failures5 Feb 2026
- 2025GCSAM: Gradient Centralized Sharpness Aware Minimization20 Jan 2025