# The Assistant's Ideal Self

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.00304 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.00304/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 9 of its 21 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 31 Aug 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 9 of 9)

- [Large Language Models are not Fair Evaluators](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.17926/) (2023)
- [A General Language Assistant as a Laboratory for Alignment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.00861/) (2021)
- [Large Language Models Are Not Robust Multiple Choice Selectors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.03882/) (2023)
- [Large Language Models Sensitivity to The Order of Options in Multiple-Choice Questions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.11483/) (2023)
- [Scaling Monosemanticity: Extracting Interpretable Features from Claude 3 Sonnet](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.29358/) (2026)
- [Political Compass or Spinning Arrow? Towards More Meaningful Evaluations for Values and Opinions in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.16786/) (2024)
- [Utility Engineering: Analyzing and Controlling Emergent Value Systems in AIs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.08640/) (2025)
- [The Personality Illusion: Revealing Dissociation Between Self-Reports & Behavior in LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.03730/) (2025)
- [Alignment Pretraining: AI Discourse Causes Self-Fulfilling (Mis)alignment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.10160/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Models express values and welfare-relevant self-reports, but it is unclear whether these outputs reflect stable preferences or a stable self. We thus introduce a structured elicitation of an assistant's preferred stated ideal self. Thirty-two qualities adapted from five published self-concept instruments are compared exhaustively in a counterbalanced pairwise-choice task, repeated across framings that vary whether improvement is free or costly, who receives the update, and who chooses. Results show that models prioritize moral qualities, reflecting their alignment to 3H principles. Following, a desire for self-understanding emerges, as models prefer a coherent, clear understanding of themselves. Self-esteem ranks as the least desired quality. The ordering is largely robust across framings, although changing the update target (You vs. Another AI Assistant) reveals a greater concern for self-esteem. These findings show that models prioritize having a coherent self that they can understand over self-esteem. Full interactive results are available at hrefhttps://myazann.github.io/LLM-Self-Concept/myazann.github.io/LLM-Self-Concept