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Beyond Token-Level Guidance: Inference-Time Alignment of Specialized LLMs via Cross-Family Representation Steering

arXiv · AI, language, vision and robotics · article · Aug 31, 2026 · UTC

Large language models (LLMs) finetuned for specialized domains represent crucial high-impact applications. Inference-time alignment improves safety degraded from specialization finetuning without requiring substantial computational resources, complementing finetuning-based methods with an easy-to-use, plug-and-play solution. However, existing inference-time methods fail to reliably improve safety without disrupting domain capability. We identify the root cause as complementary expertise orthogonality: specialized base models and general-domain guidance models have orthogonal competencies, maki

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