SymBa: Symbolic Backward Chaining for Structured Natural Language Reasoning

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Lee, Jinu, Hwang, Wonseok
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2024
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author Lee, Jinu
Hwang, Wonseok
author_facet Lee, Jinu
Hwang, Wonseok
contents To improve the performance and explainability of LLM-based natural language reasoning, structured reasoning can be applied to generate explicitly structured proofs. Among different methods for structured reasoning, we specifically focus on backward chaining, where the proof goal is recursively decomposed to subgoals by searching and applying rules. We argue that current LLM-based backward chaining systems (e.g. Least-to-most prompting and LAMBADA) are incomplete, as they omit crucial algorithmic components identified from the classic backward chaining algorithm in computational logic (SLD Resolution). To this end, we propose a novel backward chaining system, SymBa (Symbolic Backward Chaining), which integrates a symbolic solver and an LLM. In SymBa, the solver controls the proof process, and the LLM is only called when the solver requires new information to complete the proof. Empowered by completeness, SymBa achieves a significant improvement in seven deductive, relational, and arithmetic reasoning benchmarks compared to the baselines.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2402_12806
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle SymBa: Symbolic Backward Chaining for Structured Natural Language Reasoning
Lee, Jinu
Hwang, Wonseok
Computation and Language
To improve the performance and explainability of LLM-based natural language reasoning, structured reasoning can be applied to generate explicitly structured proofs. Among different methods for structured reasoning, we specifically focus on backward chaining, where the proof goal is recursively decomposed to subgoals by searching and applying rules. We argue that current LLM-based backward chaining systems (e.g. Least-to-most prompting and LAMBADA) are incomplete, as they omit crucial algorithmic components identified from the classic backward chaining algorithm in computational logic (SLD Resolution). To this end, we propose a novel backward chaining system, SymBa (Symbolic Backward Chaining), which integrates a symbolic solver and an LLM. In SymBa, the solver controls the proof process, and the LLM is only called when the solver requires new information to complete the proof. Empowered by completeness, SymBa achieves a significant improvement in seven deductive, relational, and arithmetic reasoning benchmarks compared to the baselines.
title SymBa: Symbolic Backward Chaining for Structured Natural Language Reasoning
topic Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.12806