Automated Instruction Revision (AIR): A Structured Comparison of Task Adaptation Strategies for LLM

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2604.09418v1
• Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2026 15:28:05 GMT
• Title: Automated Instruction Revision (AIR): A Structured Comparison of Task Adaptation Strategies for LLM
• Abstract summary: This paper studies Automated Instruction Revision (AIR), a rule-induction-based method for adapting large language models to downstream tasks.<n>We position AIR within the broader landscape of adaptation strategies, including prompt optimization, retrieval-based methods, and fine-tuning.<n>We compare these approaches across a diverse benchmark suite designed to stress different task requirements, such as knowledge injection, structured extraction, label remapping, and logical reasoning.
• Score: 0.0
• License: http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/
• Abstract: This paper studies Automated Instruction Revision (AIR), a rule-induction-based method for adapting large language models (LLMs) to downstream tasks using limited task-specific examples. We position AIR within the broader landscape of adaptation strategies, including prompt optimization, retrieval-based methods, and fine-tuning. We then compare these approaches across a diverse benchmark suite designed to stress different task requirements, such as knowledge injection, structured extraction, label remapping, and logical reasoning. The paper argues that adaptation performance is strongly task-dependent: no single method dominates across all settings. Across five benchmarks, AIR was strongest or near-best on label-remapping classification, while KNN retrieval performed best on closed-book QA, and fine-tuning dominated structured extraction and event-order reasoning. AIR is most promising when task behavior can be captured by compact, interpretable instruction rules, while retrieval and fine-tuning remain stronger in tasks dominated by source-specific knowledge or dataset-specific annotation regularities.

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