arXiv:2607.06503cs.AI2026-07被引 1

用内部状态探测提前终止注定失败的LLM智能体,大幅节省计算成本。

Doomed from the Start: Early Abort of LLM Agent Episodes via a Recall-Controlled Probe Cascade

  • 基于模型内部激活值设计轻量级探测器,从第一轮就预测任务失败。
  • 构建可调召回率的多级拦截机制,在90%召回下节省1.5至8.8倍算力。
  • 方法可冻结并认证,保证实际召回率接近目标值,适合高效率部署场景。

大型语言模型(LLM)智能体常因持续执行注定失败的多步轨迹而浪费推理计算。本文研究基于隐藏状态探测的早期失败预测与推理阶段早停策略。在Qwen-2.5-7B、Llama-3.2-3B和Qwen3-1.7B上评估,针对TextCraft和WebShop环境,轻量级线性探测器在首个交互轮次即可预测任务失败,显著早于仅依赖可观测行为的方法。我们提出一种召回可控的早停级联机制,在每轮交互中应用无需分布假设的校准失败检测器,并联合优化各轮召回预算。该设计确保在用户指定全局召回率下,成功轨迹能通过所有早停关卡。级联经独立数据验证后冻结,提供精确的后选择召回保证。实验显示,该方法在所有模型-环境组合中均优于最优单门基线,在90%召回目标下节省1.5–8.8倍计算开销;24种配置中实际召回率均在目标值一个标准差内。最强设置下,TextCraft生成词数减少60.2%,WebShop减少54.9%;95%召回时仍分别保留45.0%和41.5%的节省。仅使用行为特征的监控始终更弱,且加入行为特征无法提升隐藏状态探测性能。同时分析了高召回早停策略的样本复杂度需求。代码将很快公开。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Large language model (LLM) agents often waste inference compute by continuing multi-step trajectories that are already doomed to fail. We study early failure prediction and inference-time early stopping for LLM agents using hidden-state probes. Lightweight linear probes on internal activations predict eventual task failure from the first interaction round, substantially earlier than agent-monitoring methods based only on observable behavior. We turn this signal into a recall-controlled abort cascade for reducing LLM agent inference costs. The cascade applies a distribution-free calibrated failure detector at each early interaction round and jointly optimizes per-round recall budgets. This design ensures that eventually successful episodes survive all early-stopping gates at a user-specified global recall rate. After selection, the cascade is frozen and certified on independent data, providing an exact post-selection recall guarantee. We evaluate the method on TextCraft and WebShop with Qwen-2.5-7B, Llama-3.2-3B, and Qwen3-1.7B. The proposed LLM agent early-stopping cascade outperforms the best single-gate baseline in every model-environment pair, saving 1.5-8.8 times more compute at a 90% recall target. Achieved recall remains within one standard deviation of its target in all 24 configurations. The strongest settings reduce generated tokens by 60.2% on TextCraft and 54.9% on WebShop at 90% recall, while retaining savings of 45.0% and 41.5% at 95% recall. Behavior-only monitoring is consistently weaker, and adding behavioral features to hidden-state probes provides no further gain. We also characterize the sample complexity required to certify high-recall early-stopping policies. The code will be released soon.

大模型推理早停机制计算优化提示工程

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