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arXiv 提交日期: 2026-04-29
📄 Abstract - Calibrated Surprise: An Information-Theoretic Account of Creative Quality

The essence of good creative writing is calibrated surprise: when constraints from all relevant dimensions act together, the feasible solution space collapses into a narrow region, and the surviving choices look least predictable from an unconstrained view. "Calibrated" has a precise meaning: the author's intent, the reader's reasonable expectation, and the logic of reality converge. When these three independent judgements agree on every dimension, the set of admissible writing choices is forced into a very small region. A mathematical corollary follows: full-dimensional accuracy and mediocrity are mutually exclusive -- two sides of one constraint structure, not separate goals. We use Shannon's mutual information $I(X;Y) = H(X) - H(X|Y)$ as our analysis tool. "Calibrated" corresponds to conditional entropy going to zero; "surprise" to entropy going up; mutual information is the precise measure of the joint quantity. The argument rests on two pillars. Static: when constraints from ethos, mythos, lexis, and dianoia are imposed together, the admissible set collapses sharply, and surviving solutions show up as low-probability choices from an unconstrained view. Dynamic: the chain rule shows each writing choice is constrained by what came before and constrains what comes after; macro-level decisions naturally contribute a larger share of information, removing the need for hand-tuned weighting. Through case studies and lightweight LLM-logprob computations, we show the framework is both analytically useful and operational, laying the theoretical groundwork for Creative Quality Alignment (CQA) and a professional evaluation benchmark.

顶级标签: llm theory
详细标签: creative writing information theory surprise evaluation alignment 或 搜索:

校准惊奇:创意质量的信息论解释 / Calibrated Surprise: An Information-Theoretic Account of Creative Quality


1️⃣ 一句话总结

本文提出用信息论中的互信息来量化创作品质:当作者的意图、读者的预期和现实逻辑三个维度同时施加约束时,可行的创作选择会缩窄到一个极小区域,此时看似出人意料却又合乎情理的选择(即“校准惊奇”)恰好对应了最高质量的创意,而面面俱到的平庸则与之根本矛盾。

源自 arXiv: 2604.26269