Adaptive Termination for Multi-round Parallel Reasoning: An Universal Semantic Entropy-Guided Framework

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Xu, Zenan, Qiu, Zexuan, Huang, Guanhua, Li, Kun, Li, Siheng, Zhang, Chenchen, Li, Kejiao, Yi, Qi, Jiang, Yuhao, Zhou, Bo, Lian, Fengzong, Kang, Zhanhui
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Xu, Zenan
Qiu, Zexuan
Huang, Guanhua
Li, Kun
Li, Siheng
Zhang, Chenchen
Li, Kejiao
Yi, Qi
Jiang, Yuhao
Zhou, Bo
Lian, Fengzong
Kang, Zhanhui
author_facet Xu, Zenan
Qiu, Zexuan
Huang, Guanhua
Li, Kun
Li, Siheng
Zhang, Chenchen
Li, Kejiao
Yi, Qi
Jiang, Yuhao
Zhou, Bo
Lian, Fengzong
Kang, Zhanhui
contents Recent advances in large language models (LLMs) have accelerated progress toward artificial general intelligence, with inference-time scaling emerging as a key technique. Contemporary approaches leverage either sequential reasoning (iteratively extending chains of thought) or parallel reasoning (generating multiple solutions simultaneously) to scale inference. However, both paradigms face fundamental limitations: sequential scaling typically relies on arbitrary token budgets for termination, leading to inefficiency or premature cutoff; while parallel scaling often lacks coordination among parallel branches and requires intrusive fine-tuning to perform effectively. In light of these challenges, we aim to design a flexible test-time collaborative inference framework that exploits the complementary strengths of both sequential and parallel reasoning paradigms. Towards this goal, the core challenge lies in developing an efficient and accurate intrinsic quality metric to assess model responses during collaborative inference, enabling dynamic control and early termination of the reasoning trace. To address this challenge, we introduce semantic entropy (SE), which quantifies the semantic diversity of parallel model responses and serves as a robust indicator of reasoning quality due to its strong negative correlation with accuracy...
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_06829
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Adaptive Termination for Multi-round Parallel Reasoning: An Universal Semantic Entropy-Guided Framework
Xu, Zenan
Qiu, Zexuan
Huang, Guanhua
Li, Kun
Li, Siheng
Zhang, Chenchen
Li, Kejiao
Yi, Qi
Jiang, Yuhao
Zhou, Bo
Lian, Fengzong
Kang, Zhanhui
Computation and Language
Recent advances in large language models (LLMs) have accelerated progress toward artificial general intelligence, with inference-time scaling emerging as a key technique. Contemporary approaches leverage either sequential reasoning (iteratively extending chains of thought) or parallel reasoning (generating multiple solutions simultaneously) to scale inference. However, both paradigms face fundamental limitations: sequential scaling typically relies on arbitrary token budgets for termination, leading to inefficiency or premature cutoff; while parallel scaling often lacks coordination among parallel branches and requires intrusive fine-tuning to perform effectively. In light of these challenges, we aim to design a flexible test-time collaborative inference framework that exploits the complementary strengths of both sequential and parallel reasoning paradigms. Towards this goal, the core challenge lies in developing an efficient and accurate intrinsic quality metric to assess model responses during collaborative inference, enabling dynamic control and early termination of the reasoning trace. To address this challenge, we introduce semantic entropy (SE), which quantifies the semantic diversity of parallel model responses and serves as a robust indicator of reasoning quality due to its strong negative correlation with accuracy...
title Adaptive Termination for Multi-round Parallel Reasoning: An Universal Semantic Entropy-Guided Framework
topic Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.06829