The Length Complexity of the Two-Layer C-RASP Fragment of Chen, Ma and Li Is Θ(KT³) for 2 ≤ K ≤ T

Transformers trained on short inputs often fail on longer ones. Chen, Ma and Li asked how long training inputs must be: the length complexity of a class is the least N such that an ideal learner shown all labeled strings of length at most N identifies every target exactly. For a two-layer fragment of the attention-like language C-RASP, with K heads and integer parameters of size at most T, they proved TO(K) and guessed Ω(TK) for small K. We show that the length complexity is Θ(KT3) for T ≥ 4 and 2 ≤ K ≤ T: programs that compute different functions differ on an input of length O(KT3), and explicit pairs show this is tight. The proof steers the two programs' scores, a planar walk, into the set where exactly one is positive, using an input of at most three phases. Consequently, their minimum-complexity interpolator needs length O(α3 log α) for targets of complexity at most α, and their guess fails for every fixed K ≥ 4 and large T. The record includes the paper, its LaTeX source, and the code and certificates that reproduce every computed result.

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Publication Details

Journal
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Published
2026-11-06
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.24023735
Primary Topic
semigroups and automata theory
Type
preprint
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preprint

The Length Complexity of the Two-Layer C-RASP Fragment of Chen, Ma and Li Is Θ(KT³) for 2 ≤ K ≤ T

Kundan Baliga, Aditya Byju, Aiden Xie
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
semigroups and automata theory
preprint

The Length Complexity of the Two-Layer C-RASP Fragment of Chen, Ma and Li Is Θ(KT³) for 2 ≤ K ≤ T

Kundan Baliga, Aditya Byju, Aiden Xie
preprint en

Abstract

Transformers trained on short inputs often fail on longer ones. Chen, Ma and Li asked how long training inputs must be: the length complexity of a class is the least N such that an ideal learner shown all labeled strings of length at most N identifies every target exactly. For a two-layer fragment of the attention-like language C-RASP, with K heads and integer parameters of size at most T, they proved TO(K) and guessed Ω(TK) for small K. We show that the length complexity is Θ(KT3) for T ≥ 4 and 2 ≤ K ≤ T: programs that compute different functions differ on an input of length O(KT3), and explicit pairs show this is tight. The proof steers the two programs' scores, a planar walk, into the set where exactly one is positive, using an input of at most three phases. Consequently, their minimum-complexity interpolator needs length O(α3 log α) for targets of complexity at most α, and their guess fails for every fixed K ≥ 4 and large T. The record includes the paper, its LaTeX source, and the code and certificates that reproduce every computed result.

Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
Georgia Institute of Technology (US), University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (US)
semigroups and automata theory
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