Behavioral Fingerprints for LLM Endpoint Stability and Identity
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Abstract (arXiv)
The consistency of AI-native applications depends on the behavioral consistency of the model endpoints that power them. Traditional reliability metrics such as uptime, latency and throughput do not capture behavioral change, and an endpoint can remain "healthy" while its effective model identity changes due to updates to weights, tokenizers, quantization, inference engines, kernels, caching, routing, or hardware. We introduce Stability Monitor, a black-box stability monitoring system that periodically fingerprints an endpoint by sampling outputs from a fixed prompt set and comparing the resulting output distributions over time. Fingerprints are compared using a summed energy distance statistic across prompts, with permutation-test p-values as evidence of distribution shift aggregated sequentially to detect change events and define stability periods. In controlled validation, Stability Monitor detects changes to model family, version, inference stack, quantization, and behavioral parameters. In real-world monitoring of the same model hosted by multiple providers, we observe substantial provider-to-provider and within-provider stability differences.
Key facts. Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 5 of its 11 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 19 Mar 2026.
Builds on
5 of 11 references.
References · 5
- 2023How is ChatGPT's behavior changing over time?cited by 270
- 2017Embedding Watermarks into Deep Neural Networkscited by 248
- 2024Hypothesis testing with e-valuescited by 74
- 2019IPGuard: Protecting Intellectual Property of Deep Neural Networks via Fingerprinting the Classification Boundarycited by 70
- 2026Token-Efficient Change Detection in LLM APIscited by 5
Built on by
Citing papers per year: 2026: 4.
4 papers.
- 2026KBF: Knowledge Boundary as Fingerprint for Language Model and Black-Box API Auditingcited by 3
- 2026Measuring and Improving Behavioral Consistency in Large Language Models through Fact-Heuristic-Emotion State Enforcementcited by 0
- 2026Auditing Anonymous AI Models: A Four-Stage Protocol for Black-Box Identity Verificationcited by 0
- 2026SafeLLM4SE: Statistical Evaluation and Reporting for LLM-based Software Engineering Systemscited by 0
- 2026SafeLLM4SE: Statistical Evaluation and Reporting for LLM-based Software Engineering Systems29 Sep 2026
- 2026Auditing Anonymous AI Models: A Four-Stage Protocol for Black-Box Identity Verification31 Aug 2026
- 2026Measuring and Improving Behavioral Consistency in Large Language Models through Fact-Heuristic-Emotion State Enforcement5 Jun 2026
- 2026KBF: Knowledge Boundary as Fingerprint for Language Model and Black-Box API Auditing28 May 2026
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- 2026Skill Drift Is Contract Violation: Proactive Maintenance for LLM Agent Skill Libraries
- 2025Failure Modes in LLM Systems: A System-Level Taxonomy for Reliable AI Applications
- 2026AutoTuneBench: Trustworthy Measurement for Agent Auto-Tuning of LLM Serving Engines
- 2026MemGuard: Persisting Verifier Signals for LLM-Agent Memory Governance
- 2026Formal Methods Meet LLMs: Auditing, Monitoring, and Intervention for Compliance of Advanced AI Systems