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Main Authors: Kumar, Shanu, Mendke, Saish, Rahman, Karody Lubna Abdul, Kurasa, Santosh, Agrawal, Parag, Dandapat, Sandipan
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.00353
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author Kumar, Shanu
Mendke, Saish
Rahman, Karody Lubna Abdul
Kurasa, Santosh
Agrawal, Parag
Dandapat, Sandipan
author_facet Kumar, Shanu
Mendke, Saish
Rahman, Karody Lubna Abdul
Kurasa, Santosh
Agrawal, Parag
Dandapat, Sandipan
contents Chain-of-thought (CoT) prompting has significantly enhanced the capability of large language models (LLMs) by structuring their reasoning processes. However, existing methods face critical limitations: handcrafted demonstrations require extensive human expertise, while trigger phrases are prone to inaccuracies. In this paper, we propose the Zero-shot Uncertainty-based Selection (ZEUS) method, a novel approach that improves CoT prompting by utilizing uncertainty estimates to select effective demonstrations without needing access to model parameters. Unlike traditional methods, ZEUS offers high sensitivity in distinguishing between helpful and ineffective questions, ensuring more precise and reliable selection. Our extensive evaluation shows that ZEUS consistently outperforms existing CoT strategies across four challenging reasoning benchmarks, demonstrating its robustness and scalability.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2412_00353
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Enhancing Zero-shot Chain of Thought Prompting via Uncertainty-Guided Strategy Selection
Kumar, Shanu
Mendke, Saish
Rahman, Karody Lubna Abdul
Kurasa, Santosh
Agrawal, Parag
Dandapat, Sandipan
Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
Chain-of-thought (CoT) prompting has significantly enhanced the capability of large language models (LLMs) by structuring their reasoning processes. However, existing methods face critical limitations: handcrafted demonstrations require extensive human expertise, while trigger phrases are prone to inaccuracies. In this paper, we propose the Zero-shot Uncertainty-based Selection (ZEUS) method, a novel approach that improves CoT prompting by utilizing uncertainty estimates to select effective demonstrations without needing access to model parameters. Unlike traditional methods, ZEUS offers high sensitivity in distinguishing between helpful and ineffective questions, ensuring more precise and reliable selection. Our extensive evaluation shows that ZEUS consistently outperforms existing CoT strategies across four challenging reasoning benchmarks, demonstrating its robustness and scalability.
title Enhancing Zero-shot Chain of Thought Prompting via Uncertainty-Guided Strategy Selection
topic Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.00353