Do Language Models Converge to Themselves? Recursive Self-Refinement as Textual Relaxation

Abstract

Large language models are increasingly used in recursive refinement workflows, where an initial draft is repeatedly revised by the same model. Despite their growing use, the long-term dynamics of such workflows remain poorly understood. Does repeated refinement continue to improve outputs indefinitely, or does it converge toward a stable textual form? We study recursive self-refinement as a dynamical process in which repeated LLM revision drives text toward a model-preferred soft fixed-point region. Using GPT-5.5, we generate 10-step refinement trajectories for 50 ICML 2025 abstracts under both default-temperature and deterministic decoding, and additionally evaluate 15 ICML 2020 abstracts. We analyze normalized edit distance, exact and approximate fixed points, word-count stability, exponential relaxation, and external LLM-as-a-judge evaluation. Across all settings, refinement trajectories rapidly saturate. Most edits occur within the first few iterations, after which trajectories enter a soft fixed-point region with only minor surface-level changes. Deterministic decoding reaches exact fixed points earlier and exhibits smaller residual fluctuations than default-temperature decoding, while both achieve universal approximate convergence. The average edit magnitude follows a consistent exponential relaxation pattern, suggesting convergence toward a model-preferred textual equilibrium rather than open-ended optimization. External evaluation indicates that converged abstracts improve clarity, conciseness, and scientific style while preserving technical meaning. These findings support a dynamical-systems view of LLM self-refinement and motivate practical stopping criteria based on edit-magnitude saturation.