Prompting Large Language Models for Counterfactual Generation: An Empirical Study

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2305.14791v2
• Date: Fri, 23 Feb 2024 07:02:09 GMT
• Title: Prompting Large Language Models for Counterfactual Generation: An Empirical Study
• Authors: Yongqi Li, Mayi Xu, Xin Miao, Shen Zhou, Tieyun Qian
• Abstract summary: Large language models (LLMs) have made remarkable progress in a wide range of natural language understanding and generation tasks. We present a comprehensive evaluation framework on various types of NLU tasks, which covers all key factors in determining LLMs' capability of generating counterfactuals.
• Score: 13.506528217009507
• License: http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/
• Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) have made remarkable progress in a wide range of natural language understanding and generation tasks. However, their ability to generate counterfactuals has not been examined systematically. To bridge this gap, we present a comprehensive evaluation framework on various types of NLU tasks, which covers all key factors in determining LLMs' capability of generating counterfactuals. Based on this framework, we 1) investigate the strengths and weaknesses of LLMs as the counterfactual generator, and 2) disclose the factors that affect LLMs when generating counterfactuals, including both the intrinsic properties of LLMs and prompt designing. The results show that, though LLMs are promising in most cases, they face challenges in complex tasks like RE since they are bounded by task-specific performance, entity constraints, and inherent selection bias. We also find that alignment techniques, e.g., instruction-tuning and reinforcement learning from human feedback, may potentially enhance the counterfactual generation ability of LLMs. On the contrary, simply increasing the parameter size does not yield the desired improvements. Besides, from the perspective of prompt designing, task guidelines unsurprisingly play an important role. However, the chain-of-thought approach does not always help due to inconsistency issues.

Related papers

• LLM The Genius Paradox: A Linguistic and Math Expert's Struggle with Simple Word-based Counting Problems [28.72485319617863]
  LLMs struggle with some basic tasks that humans find trivial to handle, e.g., counting the number of character r's in the wordstrawberry. We measure transferability of advanced mathematical and coding reasoning capabilities from specialized LLMs to simple counting tasks. Compared with strategies such as finetuning and in-context learning, we show that engaging reasoning is the most robust and efficient way to help LLMs better perceive tasks.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2024-10-18T04:17:16Z)
• Defining Boundaries: A Spectrum of Task Feasibility for Large Language Models [6.008311204104302]
  Large language models (LLMs) have shown remarkable performance in various tasks but often fail to handle queries that exceed their knowledge and capabilities. This paper addresses the need for LLMs to recognize and refuse infeasible tasks due to the required skills surpassing their capabilities.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2024-08-11T22:58:23Z)
• Q*: Improving Multi-step Reasoning for LLMs with Deliberative Planning [53.6472920229013]
  Large Language Models (LLMs) have demonstrated impressive capability in many natural language tasks. LLMs are prone to produce errors, hallucinations and inconsistent statements when performing multi-step reasoning. We introduce Q*, a framework for guiding LLMs decoding process with deliberative planning.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2024-06-20T13:08:09Z)
• Potential and Limitations of LLMs in Capturing Structured Semantics: A Case Study on SRL [78.80673954827773]
  Large Language Models (LLMs) play a crucial role in capturing structured semantics to enhance language understanding, improve interpretability, and reduce bias. We propose using Semantic Role Labeling (SRL) as a fundamental task to explore LLMs' ability to extract structured semantics. We find interesting potential: LLMs can indeed capture semantic structures, and scaling-up doesn't always mirror potential. We are surprised to discover that significant overlap in the errors is made by both LLMs and untrained humans, accounting for almost 30% of all errors.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2024-05-10T11:44:05Z)
• Toward Self-Improvement of LLMs via Imagination, Searching, and Criticizing [56.75702900542643]
  We introduce AlphaLLM for the self-improvements of Large Language Models. It integrates Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) with LLMs to establish a self-improving loop. Our experimental results show that AlphaLLM significantly enhances the performance of LLMs without additional annotations.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2024-04-18T15:21:34Z)
• Supervised Knowledge Makes Large Language Models Better In-context Learners [94.89301696512776]
  Large Language Models (LLMs) exhibit emerging in-context learning abilities through prompt engineering. The challenge of improving the generalizability and factuality of LLMs in natural language understanding and question answering remains under-explored. We propose a framework that enhances the reliability of LLMs as it: 1) generalizes out-of-distribution data, 2) elucidates how LLMs benefit from discriminative models, and 3) minimizes hallucinations in generative tasks.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2023-12-26T07:24:46Z)
• TRACE: A Comprehensive Benchmark for Continual Learning in Large Language Models [52.734140807634624]
  Aligned large language models (LLMs) demonstrate exceptional capabilities in task-solving, following instructions, and ensuring safety. Existing continual learning benchmarks lack sufficient challenge for leading aligned LLMs. We introduce TRACE, a novel benchmark designed to evaluate continual learning in LLMs.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2023-10-10T16:38:49Z)
• Are Large Language Models Really Robust to Word-Level Perturbations? [68.60618778027694]
  We propose a novel rational evaluation approach that leverages pre-trained reward models as diagnostic tools. Longer conversations manifest the comprehensive grasp of language models in terms of their proficiency in understanding questions. Our results demonstrate that LLMs frequently exhibit vulnerability to word-level perturbations that are commonplace in daily language usage.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2023-09-20T09:23:46Z)

This list is automatically generated from the titles and abstracts of the papers in this site.

This site does not guarantee the quality of this site (including all information) and is not responsible for any consequences.