Human-LLM Deliberation as Interactive Proof: Conditions for Verifiability Without Transparency

TL;DR - This paper models human-LLM deliberation as an interactive proof in which a resource-bounded user verifies an LLM’s claims through requested supporting details rather than internal-model transparency. It establishes when such local checks can reliably certify claims and highlights the practical limits imposed by human effort, expertise, and fatigue.

• Proves anytime-valid soundness against adaptive LLM provers when false-pass and human-error bounds remain valid after every relevant interaction history.
• Establishes finite-horizon completeness under additional assumptions about honest-response adequacy and sufficient diagnostic progress.
• Shows that accumulating checks can strengthen acceptance evidence, but each check requires a useful LLM response and reliable human evaluation.
• Identifies resource regimes where a sequence of local checks is certifiable even though an equivalent global check is not.