解析大模型多轮推理的理论机制,揭示其逼近、学习与泛化能力。
Towards Understanding Multi-Round Large Language Model Reasoning: Approximability, Learnability and Generalizability
- 用有限上下文的Transformer逼近图灵可计算函数序列。
- 证明多轮生成在序列超长时仍可学习,突破上下文限制。
- 揭示误差传播规律,解释多轮推理如何稳定输出结果。
近期认知科学与大语言模型多轮推理技术的进步表明,迭代思维过程能提升复杂任务中的问题求解性能。受此启发,链式思考、辩论与自精炼等方法被应用于自回归大模型,在数学推理、常识推理和多跳问答等任务中取得显著成功。然而,多轮推理如何提升求解能力的理论基础仍不清晰。本文研究自回归模型在多轮推理下的逼近性、可学习性与泛化性。我们证明:具有有限上下文窗口的Transformer是图灵可计算函数步骤的通用逼近器,可通过多轮推理逼近任意图灵可计算的序列到序列函数。我们将PAC学习扩展至序列生成,证明即使序列长度超过模型上下文窗口,多轮生成依然可学习。最后,我们分析泛化误差在各轮间的传播机制,说明前述方法如何约束误差,使输出保持在期望范围内。本工作揭示了多轮序列学习与推理的系统性理论基础,强调其在推理复杂度中的核心作用。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Recent advancements in cognitive science and multi-round reasoning techniques for Large Language Models (LLMs) suggest that iterative thinking processes improve problem-solving performance in complex tasks. Inspired by this, approaches like Chain-of-Thought, debating, and self-refinement have been applied to auto-regressive LLMs, achieving significant successes in tasks such as mathematical reasoning, commonsense reasoning, and multi-hop question answering. Despite these successes, the theoretical basis for how multi-round reasoning enhances problem-solving abilities remains underexplored. In this work, we investigate the approximation, learnability, and generalization properties of multi-round auto-regressive models. We show that Transformers with finite context windows are universal approximators for steps of Turing-computable functions and can approximate any Turing-computable sequence-to-sequence function through multi-round reasoning. We extend PAC learning to sequence generation and demonstrate that multi-round generation is learnable even when the sequence length exceeds the model's context window. Finally, we examine how generalization error propagates across rounds, and show how the aforementioned approaches can help constrain this error, ensuring outputs stay within an expectation boundary. This work sheds light on the systemic theoretical foundations of multi-round sequence learning and reasoning, emphasizing its role in inference complexity.
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