大模型无需训练即可在小数据上完成分类,但回归和聚类效果差。
Large Language Models as Universal Predictors? An Empirical Study on Small Tabular Datasets
- 用少样本提示让大模型直接预测结构化数据,不需微调。
- 分类任务表现接近传统模型,回归与聚类明显落后。
- 适合快速探索数据,尤其适用于业务分析场景。
大型语言模型(LLMs)原本用于自然语言处理,具备跨模态和领域泛化能力。凭借上下文学习(ICL)能力,它们可在无需下游任务微调的情况下对结构化输入执行预测任务。本文研究了主流大模型(GPT-5、GPT-4o、GPT-o3、Gemini-2.5-Flash、DeepSeek-R1)在小规模结构化数据集上的函数逼近能力,涵盖分类、回归和聚类任务。在少样本提示下评估其性能,并与线性模型、集成方法及表格基础模型(TFMs)对比。结果表明,大模型在数据稀缺条件下分类表现优异,可作为实用的零训练基线;而回归任务表现较差,可能因连续输出空间过大;聚类效果也有限,归因于该任务缺乏真正的上下文学习机制。该方法支持快速低开销的数据探索,在商业智能与探索性分析中具有可行替代性。进一步分析发现,上下文长度和提示结构对逼近质量有显著影响,存在性能权衡。结论表明,大模型可作为结构化数据的通用预测引擎,分类能力强,但回归与聚类仍有明显局限。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Large Language Models (LLMs), originally developed for natural language processing (NLP), have demonstrated the potential to generalize across modalities and domains. With their in-context learning (ICL) capabilities, LLMs can perform predictive tasks over structured inputs without explicit fine-tuning on downstream tasks. In this work, we investigate the empirical function approximation capability of LLMs on small-scale structured datasets for classification, regression and clustering tasks. We evaluate the performance of state-of-the-art LLMs (GPT-5, GPT-4o, GPT-o3, Gemini-2.5-Flash, DeepSeek-R1) under few-shot prompting and compare them against established machine learning (ML) baselines, including linear models, ensemble methods and tabular foundation models (TFMs). Our results show that LLMs achieve strong performance in classification tasks under limited data availability, establishing practical zero-training baselines. In contrast, the performance in regression with continuous-valued outputs is poor compared to ML models, likely because regression demands outputs in a large (often infinite) space, and clustering results are similarly limited, which we attribute to the absence of genuine ICL in this setting. Nonetheless, this approach enables rapid, low-overhead data exploration and offers a viable alternative to traditional ML pipelines in business intelligence and exploratory analytics contexts. We further analyze the influence of context size and prompt structure on approximation quality, identifying trade-offs that affect predictive performance. Our findings suggest that LLMs can serve as general-purpose predictive engines for structured data, with clear strengths in classification and significant limitations in regression and clustering.
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