arXiv Machine Learning

Complex Problem Solving in Large Language Models: A Statistical Control Survey and Diagnostic Framework

arXiv AI
Sep 4

It's the Problem, Not the Path: Budget and Difficulty Confounds in LLM Reasoning Trajectories

The paper investigates whether large language models’ reasoning traces truly contain early, informative signals or merely reflect budget and difficulty confounds. Using a restart‑controlled truncation probe, the authors compare continuation success rates against from‑scratch restart curves across 178 problem‑model pairs, finding that only one case shows prefix‑limited success and that continuing a model’s own prefix generally outperforms restarting. A difficulty‑controlled test and two generation‑free analyses reveal that early internal signals do not carry outcome information beyond a problem‑difficulty baseline, underscoring the need for proper counterfactual controls.

By Yigit Utku Bulut
arXiv AI
6d ago

Diagnose, Recover, Certify: Task Readiness under Hidden Dynamics Changes

The paper introduces a framework for diagnosing and recovering from hidden dynamics changes in deployed control policies, focusing on the problem of task readiness under dormant dynamics drift. It proposes an intervention-based Bayesian method called Evidence‑Gated Matched‑Pulse Transport that localizes faults and estimates actuator effectiveness, enabling agents to certify readiness for future tasks with limited, task‑agnostic interactions. The approach is evaluated on diverse benchmarks, measuring readiness coverage, selective risk, interaction cost, and return, and identifies regimes where transported evidence is decisive.

By Nguyen Viet Tuan Kiet, Huynh Thi Thanh Binh
arXiv AI
Aug 12

UPAIR: Diagnosing Reasoning States via Uncertainty-Progress Alignment for Selective Intervention

arXiv:2607. 17188v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: While test-time scaling improves the problem-solving ability of large reasoning models (LRMs) through additional inference-time computation, it can also exacerbate overthinking and underthinking, which we formulate as reasoning state--action mismatch.

By Cheng Yan, Zhijun Fan, Guangyang Ye, Fan Xu, Xiang Xia, Yawei Wang, Wuyang Zhang
arXiv AI
Aug 24

Calibrating Criterion Revision in LLM Agents: Failure Modes and a Trace-Anchored Protocol

The paper introduces a framework for evaluating how large language model agents revise their success criteria after failures, defining five non‑compensatory conditions that must be met for a criterion revision to be considered valid. Using the CMB‑0.1 protocol, the authors test twelve cross‑domain scenarios across four system configurations, finding that no model trial satisfies all five conditions and highlighting specific failure modes such as zero‑state reconstruction and inadequate intervention sensitivity. They propose a more stringent trace‑anchored CMB‑0.4 protocol to better isolate and measure criterion revision in future studies.

By Guodong Xu