Geometric OOD detection for LLM hidden states
Project description
GeoOD
Geometric out-of-distribution detection for LLM hidden states.
Perplexity misses OOD inputs when the model is fluent in the OOD domain. GeoOD detects them using hidden-state geometry (Mahalanobis distance + intrinsic dimensionality).
Paper: The Geometric Blind Spot of Perplexity: When Low Loss Hides Out-of-Distribution
Why GeoOD?
Perplexity-based OOD detection has a blind spot: it cannot distinguish "the model knows this domain" from "this input belongs to the task distribution." Code snippets score lower perplexity than math problems on a math-trained model — but their hidden states collapse to 4 dimensions (vs 34 for math). GeoOD catches this.
| Method | Code AUROC (LLaMA-3-8B) | Code AUROC (Mistral-7B) |
|---|---|---|
| Perplexity | 0.352 | 0.150 |
| GeoOD | 1.000 | 1.000 |
Installation
pip install geood
Quick start
import geood
# 1. Calibrate with in-distribution reference texts (50+ recommended)
detector = geood.calibrate("gpt2", ref_texts)
# 2. Detect OOD inputs
result = detector.detect("def quicksort(arr): ...")
print(result.is_ood) # True
print(result.score) # 0.97
print(result.explain()) # "OOD detected: ref_dim=33.8, mahalanobis=12.3"
# 3. Save for deployment (no pickle — safe to share)
detector.save("my_detector")
detector = geood.load("my_detector")
Works with any HuggingFace causal LM. Detection is strongest with 7B+ models; GPT-2 works for testing but produces weaker separation.
Minimal example (runs on CPU)
import geood
# Calibrate on English sentences
ref_texts = [
"The weather today is sunny and warm.",
"She walked to the store to buy groceries.",
"The meeting was scheduled for three o'clock.",
# ... 50+ reference texts recommended for reliable calibration
]
detector = geood.calibrate("gpt2", ref_texts)
# Test: in-distribution (low score)
result = detector.detect("He drove to work in the morning.")
print(result.score) # ~0.5 (in-distribution range)
# Test: out-of-distribution (higher score)
result = detector.detect("def fibonacci(n): return n if n < 2 else fibonacci(n-1) + fibonacci(n-2)")
print(result.score) # ~0.7+ (OOD range)
print(result.explain())
# Note: GPT-2 produces moderate separation. Use 7B+ models for strong OOD detection.
API
geood.calibrate(model, ref_texts, tokenizer=None, layer="auto")
Calibrate a detector from reference in-distribution texts.
- model — HuggingFace model name (
str) or a loadedPreTrainedModel - ref_texts — list of in-distribution reference strings (50+ recommended)
- tokenizer — required when
modelis an object - layer —
"auto"selects the best layer automatically, or pass anint
Returns a Detector. The model is cached internally for subsequent detect() calls.
detector.detect(input_text)
Score one or more texts against the calibrated reference.
- Pass a single
strto get a singleDetectionResult - Pass a
list[str]to get alist[DetectionResult](batch detection also computesintrinsic_dim)
DetectionResult
| Field | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
is_ood |
bool |
Whether the input is out-of-distribution |
score |
float |
OOD score (0 = in-distribution, 1 = OOD) |
mahalanobis |
float |
Raw Mahalanobis distance |
intrinsic_dim |
int | None |
Intrinsic dimensionality (available in batch mode) |
reference_dim |
float |
Reference corpus dimensionality |
layer |
int |
Transformer layer used |
explain() |
str |
Human-readable explanation |
detector.save(path) / geood.load(path)
Serialize and load detectors. Files are saved as .npz (numpy compressed). No pickle — safe to load from untrusted sources.
Detector.calibrate_from_vectors(hidden_states, layer_indices)
Calibrate directly from pre-extracted hidden state vectors. Useful for testing or custom extraction pipelines.
How it works
-
Calibrate: Run a forward pass on reference texts. Extract hidden states at candidate layers. Compute centroid, covariance, and intrinsic dimensionality. Auto-select the layer with highest representational capacity.
-
Detect: Run a forward pass on new input. Compute Mahalanobis distance to the calibrated reference. OOD inputs produce geometrically distinct representations — even when the model assigns them low perplexity.
Supported models
Any HuggingFace causal LM with a standard transformer architecture:
- GPT-2, GPT-Neo, GPT-J
- LLaMA, Llama-2, Llama-3
- Mistral, Mixtral
- Qwen, Gemma, Phi
Development
git clone https://github.com/seetrex-ai/geood
cd geood
pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest
Citation
@article{tabares2026geood,
title={The Geometric Blind Spot of Perplexity: When Low Loss Hides Out-of-Distribution},
author={Tabares Montilla, Jesus},
year={2026},
doi={10.5281/zenodo.19039654}
}
License
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