Does Reasoning Emerge? Examining the Probabilities of Causation in Large Language Models

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: González, Javier, Nori, Aditya V.
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2024
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author González, Javier
Nori, Aditya V.
author_facet González, Javier
Nori, Aditya V.
contents Recent advances in AI have been significantly driven by the capabilities of large language models (LLMs) to solve complex problems in ways that resemble human thinking. However, there is an ongoing debate about the extent to which LLMs are capable of actual reasoning. Central to this debate are two key probabilistic concepts that are essential for connecting causes to their effects: the probability of necessity (PN) and the probability of sufficiency (PS). This paper introduces a framework that is both theoretical and practical, aimed at assessing how effectively LLMs are able to replicate real-world reasoning mechanisms using these probabilistic measures. By viewing LLMs as abstract machines that process information through a natural language interface, we examine the conditions under which it is possible to compute suitable approximations of PN and PS. Our research marks an important step towards gaining a deeper understanding of when LLMs are capable of reasoning, as illustrated by a series of math examples.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2408_08210
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Does Reasoning Emerge? Examining the Probabilities of Causation in Large Language Models
González, Javier
Nori, Aditya V.
Machine Learning
Recent advances in AI have been significantly driven by the capabilities of large language models (LLMs) to solve complex problems in ways that resemble human thinking. However, there is an ongoing debate about the extent to which LLMs are capable of actual reasoning. Central to this debate are two key probabilistic concepts that are essential for connecting causes to their effects: the probability of necessity (PN) and the probability of sufficiency (PS). This paper introduces a framework that is both theoretical and practical, aimed at assessing how effectively LLMs are able to replicate real-world reasoning mechanisms using these probabilistic measures. By viewing LLMs as abstract machines that process information through a natural language interface, we examine the conditions under which it is possible to compute suitable approximations of PN and PS. Our research marks an important step towards gaining a deeper understanding of when LLMs are capable of reasoning, as illustrated by a series of math examples.
title Does Reasoning Emerge? Examining the Probabilities of Causation in Large Language Models
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.08210