Introduction to RLCS

Overview

Representation-Level Control Surfaces (RLCS) is a paradigm for ensuring the reliability of AI systems by monitoring their internal latent representations. Unlike traditional monitoring that looks at inputs (raw data) or outputs (predictions), RLCS looks at the intermediate state.

The resLIK package provides a reference implementation of this architecture in R.

The Problem

Machine Learning models assume that test data comes from the same distribution as training data (IID assumption). In the real world, this is rarely true. Data can: * Drift slowly (Temporal Shift) * Experience sudden shocks (Sensor Failure) * Be fundamentally invalid (Out-of-Distribution)

RLCS provides a mechanism to detect these states deterministically and issue a safety signal (PROCEED, DEFER, ABSTAIN) before the model makes a potentially dangerous prediction.

Core Sensors

1. ResLik (Residual Likelihood)

This is a Population-Level sensor. It answers: “Does this sample look like the training data?”

It computes the discrepancy (Mean Absolute Deviation) between the current sample and a reference distribution. If the discrepancy is too high, it gates the signal.

2. TCS (Temporal Consistency Sensor)

This is a Time-Series sensor. It answers: “Is the system changing too fast?”

It measures the drift between consecutive time steps. Even if data is valid (low ResLik discrepancy), a sudden jump (shock) can destabilize a control loop.

3. Agreement Sensor

This is a Redundancy sensor. It answers: “Do my independent sources agree?”

It computes the cosine similarity between two views (e.g., Lidar vs Camera, or Model A vs Model B). High conflict suggests one source is compromised.

The Control Surface

The sensors feed into a deterministic Control Surface. This component aggregates the diagnostics using a “Conservative OR” logic:

ABSTAIN: If ResLik detects a fundamental anomaly. The system should stop.
DEFER: If TCS or Agreement detect instability. The system should proceed with caution or fallback to a safe mode.
PROCEED: Only if all checks pass.

Example Workflow

The following example demonstrates how to initialize the sensors, process a latent vector, and derive a control decision.

library(resLIK)

# 1. Initialize
# Assume z_t is a latent vector from your model (e.g., shape 1x3)
z_t <- c(0.5, -0.2, 0.1) 
z_prev <- c(0.5, -0.2, 0.0) # Previous state at t-1

# Define reference statistics (normally derived from training data)
ref_mean <- 0
ref_sd <- 1

# 2. Sensing
# Check population fit (ResLik)
res_out <- reslik(z_t, ref_mean = ref_mean, ref_sd = ref_sd)
print(paste("ResLik Discrepancy:", res_out$diagnostics$discrepancy))
#> [1] "ResLik Discrepancy: 0.266666664"

# Check stability (TCS)
tcs_out <- tcs(z_t, z_prev)
print(paste("TCS Drift:", tcs_out$drift))
#> [1] "TCS Drift: 0.185694993350106"

# 3. Decision
decision <- rlcs_control(res_out, tcs = tcs_out)
print(paste("Control Signal:", decision))
#> [1] "Control Signal: PROCEED"
# Expected: "PROCEED"