Vector Ontologies as an LLM world view extraction method
Large Language Models (LLMs) possess intricate internal representations of the world, yet these latent structures are notoriously difficult to interpret or repurpose beyond the original prediction task. Building on our earlier work (Rothenfusser, 2025), which introduced the concept of vector ontologies as a framework for translating high-dimensional neural representations into interpretable geometric structures, this paper provides the first empirical validation of that approach. A vector ontology defines a domain-specific vector space spanned by ontologically meaningful dimensions, allowing geometric analysis of concepts and relationships within a domain. We construct an 8-dimensional vector ontology of musical genres based on Spotify audio features and test whether an LLM's internal world model of music can be consistently and accurately projected into this space. Using GPT-4o-mini, we extract genre representations through multiple natural language prompts and analyze the consistency of these projections across linguistic variations and their alignment with ground-truth data. Our results show (1) high spatial consistency of genre projections across 47 query formulations, (2) strong alignment between LLM-inferred genre locations and real-world audio feature distributions, and (3) evidence of a direct relationship between prompt phrasing and spatial shifts in the LLM's inferred vector ontology. These findings demonstrate that LLMs internalize structured, repurposable knowledge and that vector ontologies offer a promising method for extracting and analyzing this knowledge in a transparent and verifiable way.
Code (1)
Methods 이 논문이 사용한 방법론
Similar Papers 제목 키워드 기반
Automatic Product Ontology Extraction from Textual Reviews
Ontologies have proven beneficial in different settings that make use of textual reviews. However, manually constructing ontologies is a laborious and time-consuming process in need of automation. We propose a novel meth…
To Be or Not To Be: Vector ontologies as a truly formal ontological framework
Since Edmund Husserl coined the term "Formal Ontologies" in the early 20th century, a field that identifies itself with this particular branch of sciences has gained increasing attention. Many authors, and even Husserl h…
Meronymic Ontology Extraction via Large Language Models
Ontologies have become essential in today's digital age as a way of organising the vast amount of readily available unstructured text. In providing formal structure to this information, ontologies have immense value and …
HIVE-4-MAT: Advancing the Ontology Infrastructure for Materials Science
Introduces HIVE-4-MAT - Helping Interdisciplinary Vocabulary Engineering for Materials Science, an automatic linked data ontology application. Covers contextual background for materials science, shared ontology infrastru…
named-entity-recognitionNamed Entity RecognitionNamed Entity Recognition (NER)Relation+1Open Relation and Event Type Discovery with Type Abstraction
Conventional closed-world information extraction (IE) approaches rely on human ontologies to define the scope for extraction. As a result, such approaches fall short when applied to new domains. This calls for systems th…
Event ExtractionRelationRelation ExtractionVocal Bursts Type Prediction