{"paper":{"title":"Proof-Carrying Numbers (PCN): A Protocol for Trustworthy Numeric Answers from LLMs via Claim Verification","license":"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":["cs.CR","cs.DB","cs.LG"],"primary_cat":"cs.CL","authors_text":"Aivin V. Solatorio","submitted_at":"2025-09-08T17:20:16Z","abstract_excerpt":"Large Language Models (LLMs) as stochastic systems may generate numbers that deviate from available data, a failure known as \\emph{numeric hallucination}. Existing safeguards -- retrieval-augmented generation, citations, and uncertainty estimation -- improve transparency but cannot guarantee fidelity: fabricated or misquoted values may still be displayed as if correct. We propose \\textbf{Proof-Carrying Numbers (PCN)}, a presentation-layer protocol that enforces numeric fidelity through mechanical verification. Under PCN, numeric spans are emitted as \\emph{claim-bound tokens} tied to structured"},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"2509.06902","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/2509.06902/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[],"snapshot_sha256":"c28c3603d3b5d939e8dc4c7e95fa8dfce3d595e45f758748cecf8e644a296938"},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}