Low-Margin Branch Points in Deterministic LLM Deliberatio
Hajime Shimao, Warut Khern-am-nua
Abstract
Deterministic multi-agent LLM deliberation can exactly re- play a fixed transcript, yet exact replay alone does not test local resistance to controlled internal interventions. Because each response becomes context for later agents, a changed greedy token can redirect a transcript-mediated execution. We present a white-box audit of this local failure mode in a five-agent committee under greedy decoding. We prospectively select low- and high-margin token positions, require exact no-op re- play, inject norm-relative residual displacements, and measure first transcript divergence within ten generated tokens. Low- margin positions are more branch-sensitive than high-margin controls, while matched margin-reducing gradient directions branch substantially more often than margin-increasing con- trols. We then continue selected realized branches through the committee to distinguish textual persistence from preference and final-decision changes. The contribution is a controlled audit for local branch susceptibility in this specified protocol, not an estimate of deployment frequency, decision correct- ness, or a phenomenon unique to multi-agent systems.