arXiv:2505.20128cs.CL2025-05NeurIPS被引 13

让大模型通过自我激励迭代优化搜索能力,提升复杂问题求解准确率。

Iterative Self-Incentivization Empowers Large Language Models as Agentic Searchers

  • 大模型在推理中自我生成搜索路径并加权评估,形成闭环优化。
  • 在四个知识密集型基准上,精确匹配得分提升7.8%以上。
  • 适合需要多步推理与外部检索的智能搜索任务研究者。

大型语言模型(LLMs)已被广泛用于信息检索以改进传统方法。然而,由于多跳查询的复杂性及检索内容的相关性不足,有效引导LLM在复杂任务中获取准确知识仍是挑战。为此,我们提出EXSEARCH,一种代理式搜索框架,使LLM在推理过程中通过自激励机制学习获取有用信息。每一步中,LLM决定检索内容(思考),触发外部检索器(搜索),并提取细粒度证据(记录)以支持下一步推理。为实现该能力,EXSEARCH采用广义期望最大化算法:E步中,LLM生成多条搜索轨迹并分配重要性权重;M步中,基于加权损失函数训练LLM。这形成自激励循环,使LLM从自身生成的数据中持续迭代优化。我们进一步理论分析该训练过程,建立收敛性保证。在四个知识密集型基准上的实验表明,EXSEARCH显著优于基线,例如在精确匹配分数上提升7.8%。受此结果启发,我们推出EXSEARCH-Zoo,扩展方法至更广泛场景,促进未来研究。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Large language models (LLMs) have been widely integrated into information retrieval to advance traditional techniques. However, effectively enabling LLMs to seek accurate knowledge in complex tasks remains a challenge due to the complexity of multi-hop queries as well as the irrelevant retrieved content. To address these limitations, we propose EXSEARCH, an agentic search framework, where the LLM learns to retrieve useful information as the reasoning unfolds through a self-incentivized process. At each step, the LLM decides what to retrieve (thinking), triggers an external retriever (search), and extracts fine-grained evidence (recording) to support next-step reasoning. To enable LLM with this capability, EXSEARCH adopts a Generalized Expectation-Maximization algorithm. In the E-step, the LLM generates multiple search trajectories and assigns an importance weight to each; the M-step trains the LLM on them with a re-weighted loss function. This creates a self-incentivized loop, where the LLM iteratively learns from its own generated data, progressively improving itself for search. We further theoretically analyze this training process, establishing convergence guarantees. Extensive experiments on four knowledge-intensive benchmarks show that EXSEARCH substantially outperforms baselines, e.g., +7.8% improvement on exact match score. Motivated by these promising results, we introduce EXSEARCH-Zoo, an extension that extends our method to broader scenarios, to facilitate future work.

大模型搜索增强自激励

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