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Main Authors: Reganova, Elizaveta, Steinbach, Peter
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.14465
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author Reganova, Elizaveta
Steinbach, Peter
author_facet Reganova, Elizaveta
Steinbach, Peter
contents Large Language Models (LLMs) have gained significant popularity in recent years for their ability to answer questions in various fields. However, these models have a tendency to "hallucinate" their responses, making it challenging to evaluate their performance. A major challenge is determining how to assess the certainty of a model's predictions and how it correlates with accuracy. In this work, we introduce an analysis for evaluating the performance of popular open-source LLMs, as well as gpt-3.5 Turbo, on multiple choice physics questionnaires. We focus on the relationship between answer accuracy and variability in topics related to physics. Our findings suggest that most models provide accurate replies in cases where they are certain, but this is by far not a general behavior. The relationship between accuracy and uncertainty exposes a broad horizontal bell-shaped distribution. We report how the asymmetry between accuracy and uncertainty intensifies as the questions demand more logical reasoning of the LLM agent, while the same relationship remains sharp for knowledge retrieval tasks.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2411_14465
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Testing Uncertainty of Large Language Models for Physics Knowledge and Reasoning
Reganova, Elizaveta
Steinbach, Peter
Computation and Language
Machine Learning
Large Language Models (LLMs) have gained significant popularity in recent years for their ability to answer questions in various fields. However, these models have a tendency to "hallucinate" their responses, making it challenging to evaluate their performance. A major challenge is determining how to assess the certainty of a model's predictions and how it correlates with accuracy. In this work, we introduce an analysis for evaluating the performance of popular open-source LLMs, as well as gpt-3.5 Turbo, on multiple choice physics questionnaires. We focus on the relationship between answer accuracy and variability in topics related to physics. Our findings suggest that most models provide accurate replies in cases where they are certain, but this is by far not a general behavior. The relationship between accuracy and uncertainty exposes a broad horizontal bell-shaped distribution. We report how the asymmetry between accuracy and uncertainty intensifies as the questions demand more logical reasoning of the LLM agent, while the same relationship remains sharp for knowledge retrieval tasks.
title Testing Uncertainty of Large Language Models for Physics Knowledge and Reasoning
topic Computation and Language
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.14465