Training Language Models to Reason Efficiently

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Arora, Daman, Zanette, Andrea
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Arora, Daman
Zanette, Andrea
author_facet Arora, Daman
Zanette, Andrea
contents Scaling model size and training data has led to great advances in the performance of Large Language Models (LLMs). However, the diminishing returns of this approach necessitate alternative methods to improve model capabilities, particularly in tasks requiring advanced reasoning. Large reasoning models, which leverage long chain-of-thoughts, bring unprecedented breakthroughs in problem-solving capabilities but at a substantial deployment cost associated to longer generations. Reducing inference costs is crucial for the economic feasibility, user experience, and environmental sustainability of these models. In this work, we propose to train large reasoning models to reason efficiently. More precisely, we use reinforcement learning (RL) to train reasoning models to dynamically allocate inference-time compute based on task complexity. Our method incentivizes models to minimize unnecessary computational overhead while maintaining accuracy, thereby achieving substantial efficiency gains. It enables the derivation of a family of reasoning models with varying efficiency levels, controlled via a single hyperparameter. Experiments on two open-weight large reasoning models demonstrate significant reductions in inference cost while preserving most of the accuracy.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_04463
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Training Language Models to Reason Efficiently
Arora, Daman
Zanette, Andrea
Machine Learning
Computation and Language
Scaling model size and training data has led to great advances in the performance of Large Language Models (LLMs). However, the diminishing returns of this approach necessitate alternative methods to improve model capabilities, particularly in tasks requiring advanced reasoning. Large reasoning models, which leverage long chain-of-thoughts, bring unprecedented breakthroughs in problem-solving capabilities but at a substantial deployment cost associated to longer generations. Reducing inference costs is crucial for the economic feasibility, user experience, and environmental sustainability of these models. In this work, we propose to train large reasoning models to reason efficiently. More precisely, we use reinforcement learning (RL) to train reasoning models to dynamically allocate inference-time compute based on task complexity. Our method incentivizes models to minimize unnecessary computational overhead while maintaining accuracy, thereby achieving substantial efficiency gains. It enables the derivation of a family of reasoning models with varying efficiency levels, controlled via a single hyperparameter. Experiments on two open-weight large reasoning models demonstrate significant reductions in inference cost while preserving most of the accuracy.
title Training Language Models to Reason Efficiently
topic Machine Learning
Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.04463