Uncertainty quantification (UQ) methods for language models are typically evaluated on single-turn outputs, where uncertainty is attached to one generated answer. For LLM agents, however, the unit of observation is an interactive trajectory, where the model can ask clarifying questions, call tools, update state, and make intermediate decisions whose errors propagate to the final outcome.
Recent advancements in Large Language Models (LLMs) have enabled sophisticated reasoning and content generation, yet their inherent stochasticity poses significant challenges for ensuring predictive credibility. While traditional uncertainty taxonomy paradigms, such as the dichotomy of aleatoric and epistemic uncertainties, provide conceptual foundations, they often fail to capture the multi-component and multi-stage nature of LLM generation and struggle to evaluate the effectiveness of various Uncertainty Quantification (UQ) methods.
The paper introduces RUPA, a trajectory‑level uncertainty quantification framework for large language model agents. RUPA models an agent’s execution as a directed graph of reasoning states, tool interactions, and environment feedback, then propagates uncertainty across this graph to capture long‑range dependencies. Experiments on benchmarks such as τ‑2, Terminal‑Bench‑2, and GAIA show that RUPA outperforms existing methods, enabling earlier failure detection and more reliable agent execution.
By Zhengzhao Ma. Boxi Cao, Yaojie Lu, Hongyu Lin, Xianpei Han, Le Sun
arXiv:2609.18417v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Multi-turn agent trajectories often contain redundant rounds (failed tool calls, parallel sub-queries, verification-only steps) that inflate both train...
By Zhuo Chen, Zhen Zhang, Xinyu Wang, Kewei Tu
arXiv:2609.24831v1 Announce Type: new
Abstract: Agents have attracted considerably increasing attention due to the power of executing both Reasoning and Acting (ReAct) in open and dynamic environment...
By Shuang Liang, Xin-Yu Hu, Shao-Qun Zhang
arXiv:2602. 11619v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Running the same LLM agent on identical inputs yields 2.
By Aman Mehta
arXiv:2608. 00422v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) can generate fluent reasoning traces that nevertheless lead to incorrect answers, making response-level uncertainty estimation important for abstention, human review, and adaptive compute allocation.
By Dahai Yu, Lin Jiang, Rongchao Xu, Guang Wang
arXiv:2609.20973v1 Announce Type: cross
Abstract: Complex problem solving (CPS) with large language models (LLMs) is often framed as a matter of stronger reasoning or longer generation. Yet early-ste...
By Jiazhang Cai, Tao Wang, Ruidong Zhang, Siyuan Li, Terry Ma, Luyang Fang, Haoran Lu, Huimin Cheng, Yingchuan Zhang, Shushan Wu, Rui Xie, Lin Tang, Chao Huang, Rongjie Liu, Ziyu Liu, Meizhi Yu, Yongkai Chen, Yifan Zhou, Zeliang Sun, Chang Liu, Zhen Xiang, Wei Xiao, Zixin Rao, Xinyi Liu, Yutong Hu, Mengrui Zhang, Jing Zhang, Weidi Luo, Jincheng Yu, Zhengliang Liu, Weihang You, Hanqi Jiang, Yi Pan, Junhao Chen, Xinliang Li, Tianming Liu, Wenxuan Zhong, Ping Ma
The paper introduces VHD-Play, a pipeline that first samples and solves a mathematical model before generating agentic reinforcement learning environments, ensuring that dynamics and evaluation are aligned from the outset. This approach yields 3,300 diverse environments at a low cost and significantly improves the performance of a large language‑model agent (Qwen3.6‑35B‑A3B) across multiple diagnostic families and external benchmarks. The study demonstrates that stateful interaction is a key factor in learning gains and that scaling the training substrate can further enhance performance.
By Xinjie Shen, Wei Fan, Xudong Guo, Jianhong Tu, Yang Su, Chuqiao Kuang, Yinger Zhang, Dayiheng Liu
arXiv:2606. 19868v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Although large language models (LLMs) have shown strong capabilities across a wide range of tasks, their outputs often remain unreliable and may contain hallucinations, making uncertainty estimation (UE) essential for building trustworthy LLMs.
By Jiayi Wang, Xu-Yao Zhang
LLM agents act in external environments where each action changes the state that later decisions condition on, and where a single wrong step can waste interaction budget or trigger irreversible side effects long before the final failure is observed. Reliable deployment therefore requires \emph{step-level confidence estimation}: a calibrated probability that each proposed action is productive, available \emph{before} the action is executed.
The paper introduces an action‑class diagnostic framework for multi‑turn tool‑calling in large language model agents, breaking failures into action‑class miscalibration and action‑execution failure across a four‑class action space (TOOL_CALL, ASK, REFUSE, CONFIRM). It defines a self‑revealing upper bound (Acc GAR) to expose state‑grader masking of miscalibration and shows that miscalibration is a significant, previously hidden failure mode, especially for heavily tool‑trained families. The study demonstrates that calibration can be reshaped by context‑only perturbations, but the effects vary widely across models and perturbation mechanisms, underscoring the need for diagnostics beyond aggregate accuracy.
By Kangjia Zhao, Jiajun Li, Haozhan Shen, Wei Chow, Linfeng Li, Hang Song, Lingdong Kong, Chen Zhi, Tiancheng Zhao, Songhua Liu, Jianwei Yin