The Bell Boundary of Shared Representations

arXiv:2610.16828v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: When does a shared representation become insufficient for jointly supporting multiple tasks? This question lies at the heart of multi-task learning models. Although task interference in shared representations has been widely observed, its onset, measurable form, and capacity boundary remain poorly understood. In this paper, we revisit this problem through the lens of Bell's theorem. We show that if four binary task outcomes can be jointly represented by a common shared representation, their correlations must satisfy the classical CHSH bound $|S|\leq2$. We introduce NCnet, a controlled multi-task model for studying how representational capacity affects task compatibility. Experiments reveal a clear capacity-dependent transition. Once nontrivial task fitting emerges, constrained capacity can yield $|S|>2$. As capacity further increases, these exceedances progressively disappear and $S$ returns to the bounded region. This systematic pattern provides evidence that limited representational capacity is an important source of the observed incompatibility. We observe similar transitions across CNNs, PLMs, and LLMs, suggesting that the phenomenon extends beyond the controlled NCnet setting. We refer to this capacity-dependent transition as the Bell Boundary, providing a measurable diagnostic for representation bottlenecks, task incompatibility, and capacity allocation in multi-task models.

Abstract:When does a shared representation become insufficient for jointly supporting multiple tasks? This question lies at the heart of multi-task learning models. Although task interference in shared representations has been widely observed, its onset, measurable form, and capacity boundary remain poorly understood. In this paper, we revisit this problem through the lens of Bell's theorem. We show that if four binary task outcomes can be jointly represented by a common shared representation, their correlations must satisfy the classical CHSH bound $|S|\leq2$. We introduce NCnet, a controlled multi-task model for studying how representational capacity affects task compatibility. Experiments reveal a clear capacity-dependent transition. Once nontrivial task fitting emerges, constrained capacity can yield $|S|>2$. As capacity further increases, these exceedances progressively disappear and $S$ returns to the bounded region. This systematic pattern provides evidence that limited representational capacity is an important source of the observed incompatibility. We observe similar transitions across CNNs, PLMs, and LLMs, suggesting that the phenomenon extends beyond the controlled NCnet setting. We refer to this capacity-dependent transition as the Bell Boundary, providing a measurable diagnostic for representation bottlenecks, task incompatibility, and capacity allocation in multi-task models.

Machine Learning (cs.LG); Computation and Language (cs.CL)

arXiv:2610.16828 [cs.LG]

(or arXiv:2610.16828v1 [cs.LG] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2610.16828 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

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The Bell Boundary of Shared Representations

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