用结构化不确定性指导大模型提问,更准更省次数。
Structured Uncertainty guided Clarification for LLM Agents
- 将不确定性的计算从语言直接转到工具参数上,区分用户意图与模型判断。
- 提问减少1.5至2.7倍,模糊任务覆盖率提升7%至39%。
- 适合需要高效交互或少样本训练的工具调用型智能体研究者。
具备工具调用能力的大语言模型代理在用户指令模糊或不完整时常出现错误调用和任务失败。现有方法在非结构化语言空间中通过提示策略生成澄清问题,缺乏确定问什么和何时停止的合理标准。本文提出一种基于工具参数及其取值域的结构化不确定性形式,清晰分离规范性不确定性(用户想要什么)与模型不确定性(模型预测)。该方法利用期望完美信息价值(EVPI)量化每个潜在问题的消歧价值,并结合基于方面的成本建模防止重复提问。我们在两个场景中验证了该框架的通用性:第一,SAGE-Agent在推理阶段使用结构化不确定性进行问题选择,在模糊任务上的覆盖率提升7%-39%,同时澄清问题减少1.5-2.7倍,优于强基线;第二,结构化不确定性可作为有效训练信号:通过不确定性加权的GRPO训练,When2Call准确率从36.5%(3B模型)和36.7%(7B模型)分别提升至65.2%和62.9%,实现更高效的强化学习。为支持评估,我们构建了首个多轮动态工具调用消歧基准测试集ClarifyBench。结果表明,结构化不确定性是提升工具增强型代理推理效率与训练效率的原理性框架。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
LLM agents with tool-calling capabilities often fail when user instructions are ambiguous or incomplete, leading to incorrect invocations and task failures. Existing approaches operate in unstructured language spaces, generating clarifying questions through prompting strategies that lack principled criteria for determining which questions to ask and when to stop. We introduce a principled formulation of structured uncertainty that operates directly over tool parameters and their domains, cleanly separating specification uncertainty (what the user wants) from model uncertainty (what the LLM predicts). Our formulation uses Expected Value of Perfect Information (EVPI) to quantify the disambiguation value of each potential question, balanced against aspect-based cost modeling that prevents redundant questioning. We demonstrate the versatility of this formulation through two applications. First, SAGE-Agent uses structured uncertainty for inference-time question selection, achieving 7-39% higher coverage on ambiguous tasks while reducing clarification questions by 1.5-2.7x compared to strong prompting and uncertainty-based baselines. Second, we show that structured uncertainty provides effective training signals: uncertainty-guided reward modeling boosts When2Call accuracy from 36.5% to 65.2% (3B model) and 36.7% to 62.9% (7B model) through uncertainty-weighted GRPO training, demonstrating more sample-efficient reinforcement learning for tool-calling agents. To enable evaluation, we present ClarifyBench, the first multi-turn dynamic tool-calling disambiguation benchmark. Our results establish structured uncertainty as a principled framework that improves both inference-time interaction efficiency and training-time sample efficiency in tool-augmented agents.
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