Understanding Jev-Style System One Models: Does Structure Reduce Selection Bias?

Abstract

Selection bias in large language models (LLMs) can persist despite instructions to ignore presentation order or prompts that elicit reasoning. Recent efforts to reproduce Jev-style System One behavior have produced a growing family of models that predict probabilities directly over supplied candidates. Yet systematic comparisons of selection bias across Jev versions, Jev reproductions, and generative LLMs remain limited in multi-option tasks. This leaves a central question: does Jev-style decision structure reduce selection bias? We address this question with a simple test that shuffles options while keeping question and candidate content fixed. Across two Jev versions, twelve Jev reproductions, and six generative LLMs, we trace individual answers through eight presentations and compare them with fixed-order repetition. On our primary collection of 1,700 questions from two benchmarks, Jev's accuracy varies by less than two percentage points, yet its cumulative failure set expands by 27.3-28.5% relative to the original order, with first failures continuing into the final presentation. Reordering loses substantially more initial successes than fixed-order repetition, a gap that also appears in highly repeatable Jev reproductions. Nor does Jev show a general advantage over the LLM baselines in preserving correct choices. Aggregation offers limited protection: voting yields modest gains for Jev, while even unanimous answers are frequently wrong. These results expose a gap between repeatable decisions and decisions that remain correct across equivalent presentations, showing why stable accuracy alone cannot establish resistance to selection bias.