arXiv:2604.06389cs.AI2026-04被引 2

无需多次采样,用一句话判断大模型推理是否可靠。

SELFDOUBT: Uncertainty Quantification for Reasoning LLMs via the Hedge-to-Verify Ratio

  • 从推理过程直接提取'自我怀疑'与'自我验证'信号,构建单次推断的不确定性指标。
  • 无怀疑标记的推理正确率达96%,零成本实现高精度置信度判断。
  • 适用于闭源接口,10倍降低计算成本,适合生产环境部署。

推理型大模型的不确定性估计在实践中难以部署:基于采样的方法计算开销大,而常见的单次推断代理(如口头置信度或推理轨迹长度)在不同模型间表现不一致。对于无法访问对数或中间概率的私有推理API,推断时更缺乏可靠的不确定性信号。本文提出SELFDOUBT,一种单次推断的不确定性框架,通过直接从推理轨迹中提取行为信号解决该难题。核心信号为‘自疑-自检比’(HVR),可识别推理中是否存在不确定性标记,以及这些标记是否被显式自我验证行为抵消。与需多次采样或依赖模型内部结构的方法不同,SELFDOUBT仅需单条观测推理轨迹,适用于延迟与成本受限的场景。我们在七种模型和三个多步推理基准(BBH、GPQA-Diamond、MMLU-Pro)上评估。显著发现:无自疑标记的推理正确率高达96%,揭示出无需额外成本的高精度置信度门控机制。其余情况中,完整SELFDOUBT得分在10倍更低的推理成本下优于基于采样的语义熵。结合两阶段的部署级联可在71%覆盖率下达到90%准确率,且无需任务特定标签。结果表明,SELFDOUBT是面向私有推理模型的可扩展、可投产的不确定性估计基础。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Uncertainty estimation for reasoning language models remains difficult to deploy in practice: sampling-based methods are computationally expensive, while common single-pass proxies such as verbalized confidence or trace length are often inconsistent across models. This problem is compounded for proprietary reasoning APIs that expose neither logits nor intermediate token probabilities, leaving practitioners with no reliable uncertainty signal at inference time. We propose SELFDOUBT, a single-pass uncertainty framework that resolves this impasse by extracting behavioral signals directly from the reasoning trace itself. Our key signal, the Hedge-to-Verify Ratio (HVR), detects whether a reasoning trace contains uncertainty markers and, if so, whether they are offset by explicit selfchecking behavior. Unlike methods that require multiple sampled traces or model internals, SELFDOUBT operates on a single observed reasoning trajectory, making it suitable for latency- and cost-constrained deployment over any proprietary API. We evaluate SELFDOUBT across seven models and three multi-step reasoning benchmarks (BBH, GPQA-Diamond, and MMLU-Pro). Most notably, traces containing no hedging markers are correct 96% of the time, revealing an emergent high-precision confidence gate at zero additional cost. For the remaining cases, the full SELFDOUBT score significantly outperforms sampling-based semantic entropy at 10x lower inference cost. A deployment cascade combining both stages attains 90% accuracy at 71% coverage without any task-specific labels. These results establish SELFDOUBT as a scalable, production-ready foundation for uncertainty estimation over proprietary reasoning models.

不确定性估计大模型推理闭源模型置信度

Thank you to arXiv for use of its open access interoperability. PaperDance 不是 arXiv 官方产品;中文卡片由大模型生成,请以原文为准。