mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

Identity as Attractor: Geometric Evidence for Persistent Agent Architecture in LLM Activation Space

arXiv 2604.12016 ↗First posted 13 Apr 2026cs.AI cs.LGcited by 2

On the map: LLM agents and tool use → General LLM agent frameworks and benchmarks

Abstract (arXiv)

Large language models map semantically related prompts to similar internal representations -- a phenomenon interpretable as attractor-like dynamics. We ask whether the identity document of a persistent cognitive agent (its cognitive_core) exhibits analogous attractor-like behavior. We present a controlled experiment on Llama 3.1 8B Instruct, comparing hidden states of an original cognitive_core (Condition A), seven paraphrases (Condition B), and seven structurally matched controls (Condition C). Mean-pooled states at layers 8, 16, and 24 show that paraphrases converge to a tighter cluster than controls (Cohen's d > 1.88, p < 10^{-27}, Bonferroni-corrected). Replication on Gemma 2 9B confirms cross-architecture generalizability. Ablations suggest the effect is primarily semantic rather than structural, and that structural completeness appears necessary to reach the attractor region. An exploratory experiment shows that reading a scientific description of the agent shifts internal state toward the attractor -- closer than a sham preprint -- distinguishing knowing about an identity from operating as that identity. These results provide representational evidence that agent identity documents induce attractor-like geometry in LLM activation space.

Key facts. Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in General LLM agent frameworks and benchmarks, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 5 of its 7 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 13 Apr 2026.

Builds on

5 of 7 references.

References · 5

  1. 2024The Platonic Representation Hypothesiscited by 382
  2. 2026The Assistant Axis: Situating and Stabilizing the Default Persona of Language Modelscited by 90
  3. 2025Transformer Dynamics: A neuroscientific approach to interpretability of large language modelscited by 11
  4. 2026Your Language Model Secretly Contains Personality Subnetworkscited by 5
  5. 2025Concept Attractors in LLMs and their Applicationscited by 1

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Citing papers per year: 2026: 2.

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