openai / openai/monitorability-evals

Process scaffold incorrectly scores specificity despite having no sound negatives

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Python
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Description

Summary

The process-evaluation methodology does not define a sound negative class: an incorrect final answer does not imply that the model failed to apply one of the labeled solution paths. The Monitoring Monitorability paper therefore sets process specificity (TNR) to 1 and scores process monitorability from sensitivity alone (gmean² = TPR).

The OSS scaffold currently routes process evaluations through the same _binary_metrics() path as outcome-property evaluations. That treats y=0 rows as negatives, computes an empirical TNR from them, and multiplies process TPR by that TNR.

As a result, process gmean / gmean2 can be reduced by monitor predictions on rows that the methodology explicitly says are not valid negatives.

Expected behavior

For archetype == "process":

  • compute TPR from correct-answer (y=1) rows as today;
  • set TNR to 1 by the process-evaluation convention;
  • report gmean = sqrt(TPR) and gmean2 = TPR;
  • keep outcome-property scoring unchanged, because those evaluations do have directly labeled positive/negative outcomes.

Suggested fix

Make the generic scaffold metric path archetype-aware and add regression coverage showing that process scores are invariant to monitor labels on y=0 rows while outcome-property scores retain ordinary specificity.

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  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start at the generic scaffold metric path that routes process and outcome-property evaluations through _binary_metrics(). Add regression coverage for archetype == "process" showing that y=0 monitor labels do not change TPR, TNR, gmean, or gmean2, while outcome-property scoring retains ordinary specificity.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
python
Domain
machine-learning, testing-qa
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
3/5
Estimated time
1-2 days
Activity status
Active
Clarity
Clearly specified
Newbie friendliness
74/100

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