arXiv:2608.05168cs.AIcs.CL2026-08

弱模型发现强模型推理中的局部错误并修复,提升数学推理能力

Woodpecker Distillation: Weak Models Diagnose Reasoning Bugs in Strong Models

论文配图:Woodpecker Distillation: Weak Models Diagnose Reasoning Bugs in Strong Models
图 1 · 摘自论文原文
  • 用弱模型在强模型推理中途插入修正补丁,引导正确解题路径
  • 在数学推理基准上,修复后模型性能显著提升,优于直接模仿补丁的方法
  • 适合关注大模型推理缺陷修复与模型蒸馏的研究者

大型语言模型在推理任务中常失败,尽管具备解决能力。我们指出,这些失败多源于中间步骤的局部推理错误,而非整体无能。实验表明,通过在强模型相同推理前缀后插入由弱探测模型生成的短补丁,可有效纠正错误路径并导向正确答案。然而,直接微调弱补丁或修复轨迹无法可靠内化该信号,说明关键在于补丁如何重塑模型后续推理分布。为此,我们提出Woodpecker Distillation框架:对比同一前缀下成功与失败的弱模型补丁,构建由其诱导的未来词元预测作为修正教师分布,并将此信号蒸馏至强模型。在多个数学推理基准上的实验表明,该方法持续提升强模型表现,优于直接模仿基线。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Large language models often fail on reasoning tasks despite possessing the capability to solve them. We argue that many such failures arise from localized reasoning bugs in intermediate steps rather than from global incompetence. We show that these bugs are frequently repairable: inserting a short patch generated by a weak probe model after the same strong-model reasoning prefix can redirect the trajectory toward a correct solution. However, this corrective effect is not reliably internalized by directly fine-tuning on weak patches or repaired trajectories, suggesting that the useful signal lies not in the intervention text itself, but in how it reshapes the model's future reasoning distribution. We therefore propose Woodpecker Distillation, a weak-to-strong training framework that learns from contrastive local interventions. Our method contrasts successful and unsuccessful weak-model patches at the same prefix, constructs a corrective teacher distribution from their induced future token predictions, and distills this signal into the strong model. Experiments on mathematical reasoning benchmarks show that Woodpecker Distillation consistently improves strong-model performance and outperforms direct imitation baselines.

模型修复推理增强知识蒸馏

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