Conformal Blindness: A Note on $A$-Cryptic change-points

Johan Hallberg Szabadváry

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arXiv · 2601.01147

Conformal Blindness: A Note on $A$-Cryptic change-points

Johan Hallberg Szabadváry

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Abstract

Conformal Test Martingales (CTMs) are a standard method within the Conformal Prediction framework for testing the crucial assumption of data exchangeability by monitoring deviations from uniformity in the p-value sequence. Although exchangeability implies uniform p-values, the converse does not hold. This raises the question of whether a significant break in exchangeability can occur, such that the p-values remain uniform, rendering CTMs blind. We answer this affirmatively, demonstrating the phenomenon of \emph{conformal blindness}. Through explicit construction, for the theoretically ideal ``predictive oracle'' conformity measure (given by the true conditional density), we demonstrate the possibility of an \emph{$A$-cryptic change-point} (where $A$ refers to the conformity measure). Using bivariate Gaussian distributions, we identify a line along which a change in the marginal means does not alter the distribution of the conformity scores, thereby producing perfectly uniform p-values. Simulations confirm that even a massive distribution shift can be perfectly cryptic to the CTM, highlighting a fundamental limitation and emphasising the critical role of the alignment of the conformity measure with potential shifts. By contrasting the predictive oracle with recent results on detection-optimal scores, we emphasise that validity monitoring in safety-critical systems requires careful separation of predictive and diagnostic goals.

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Johan Hallberg Szabadváry. 2026-01-22. Conformal Blindness: A Note on $A$-Cryptic change-points. https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.01147

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