提出CITE算法,实现大模型推理中任意时刻的可靠答案认证。
CITE: Anytime-Valid Statistical Inference in LLM Self-Consistency

- 用可交并检验与e过程设计任意停止时间的认证方法
- 在任意数据驱动停止下保证错误率不超过设定阈值
- 适合需要动态控制误差的大模型推理场景
大语言模型通过采样多个输出并聚合最终答案来提升推理能力,但精确高效地控制误差水平仍具挑战性,尤其在停止规则依赖数据且可能答案集未知时。本文研究对预设目标答案作为模型响应分布唯一众数的任意时刻有效认证,该保证独立于答案正确性。提出基于交并检验与e过程的认证算法CITE,可在任意数据驱动停止条件下严格控制误认证率,无需预先知道答案类别集合。证明了类别集大小无关的停止时间速率,建立了主情形下常数级别的极小极大下界,并将构造扩展至加权投票。仿真与大模型自一致性实验表明,该方法在长尾分布下实现良好的误差控制与更高认证效率。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Large language models often improve reasoning by sampling multiple outputs and aggregating their final answers, but precise and efficient control of error levels remains a challenging task. In particular, deciding when to stop sampling remains difficult when the stopping rule is data-dependent and the set of possible answers is not known in advance. We study anytime-valid certification of a prespecified target answer as the unique mode of the model's response distribution, a guarantee distinct from answer correctness. We propose the Certification by Intersection-union Testing with E-processes (CITE) algorithm, which provably controls false certification at any prescribed level under arbitrary data-driven stopping, without requiring prior knowledge of the answer category set. We also prove an category-set-size-free stopping-time rate, establish matching minimax lower bounds up to constants in the main regime, and extend the construction to confidence-weighted voting. Simulations and LLM self-consistency experiments show empirical error control and improved certification in diffuse-tail settings.
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