ALPHALLM: ADDRESSING THE REASONING GAP IN LARGE

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ALPHALLM: A Self-Improving Language Model

ALPHALLM is a new framework designed to help large language models (LLMs) improve themselves. It works in a
cycle, using three key steps: imagining new scenarios, searching for the best solutions, and critiquing the results to
learn from them.

1. Imagination:

* ALPHALLM starts by creating new learning examples, like practice problems, to challenge the LLM. This helps
overcome the issue of limited training data.

2. Searching:

* ALPHALLM uses a special search method called ηMCTS to find the best way to solve the problems it imagined.
This method is efficient and works well for language tasks.

* Instead of looking at each word individually, ηMCTS considers groups of words as actions, making the search
faster.

* It also balances exploring many options with focusing on the most promising ones.

3. Critiquing:

* To guide the search, ALPHALLM uses three critics that provide feedback:

* Value Function: Predicts future rewards for different solutions.

* Process Reward Model: Checks if each step of the solution is correct.

* Outcome Reward Model: Evaluates the overall quality of the solution.

* For complex tasks like math or coding, the critics can also decide which tools to use and how to use them
effectively.

Learning and Improvement:

* After the search, the best solution found by ηMCTS is used as a training example for the LLM. This helps the
LLM learn and improve its abilities over time.

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Understanding the LLM Self-Improvement Process

This explanation describes how a large language model (LLM) can improve itself through a process involving problem
formulation, search algorithms, and feedback.
1. Setting Up the Problem:
* The LLM, represented by πθ, takes a sequence of words (prompt) as input and generates a sequence of words
(response) as output.
* The generation process is like a chain reaction, where each word is predicted based on the words that came
before it.
* This can be seen as a decision-making problem, where each word choice is an action that leads to a new
situation (state).
* The goal is to find the best sequence of words (actions) that maximizes a reward, which reflects how good the
generated text is.
2. Self-Improvement Loop:
* The LLM starts with an initial set of examples (prompts and responses).
* It then goes through a cycle of improvement:
* Generating Prompts: New prompts are created to challenge the LLM.
* Searching for Solutions: The LLM uses a search algorithm called Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) to find the
best responses to the prompts. MCTS explores many possible responses and chooses the ones that are most likely
to get a high reward.
* Collecting Feedback: The LLM gets feedback on its responses, which helps it learn and improve.
3. Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS):
* MCTS is like exploring a maze. It builds a tree of possible actions (word choices) and their outcomes.
* It balances exploring new options with exploiting the ones that seem promising so far.
* This helps the LLM find the best path to a high-quality response.
4. Challenges and Solutions:
* Creating good prompts, searching efficiently, and getting accurate feedback are key challenges in this process.
* The paper proposes solutions to these challenges, such as using specific techniques for prompt generation and
feedback evaluation.

Overall, this self-improvement loop allows the LLM to learn from its own generated text and continuously improve
its ability to generate high-quality responses.

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ηMCTS: Efficient Search for LLMs

This section explains how ηMCTS, a specific type of search algorithm, is used to help LLMs find the best responses
efficiently.

1. The Challenge of Search Space:

* Searching for the best response involves exploring many possible sequences of words.

* With a large vocabulary, the number of possible sequences explodes quickly, making it difficult to search
effectively.

2. Option-Level Search:

* Instead of considering each word individually, ηMCTS groups words into "options."

* An option can be a few words, a sentence, or even multiple sentences.

* This reduces the search space and makes it easier to find good solutions.

3. How ηMCTS Works:

* Selection: Starting from the beginning, the algorithm chooses the most promising option based on its potential
reward and how often it has been explored before.

* Expansion: A new option is added to the search tree based on the selected option.

* Simulation: The algorithm simulates how good the new option is by generating text and evaluating it using
feedback functions.

* Backpropagation: The information from the simulation is used to update the value of the new option and its
ancestors, helping the algorithm make better choices in the future.

4. Benefits of Option-Level Search:

* Efficiency: By grouping words into options, the search space becomes smaller and easier to manage.

* Flexibility: Options can be of different lengths, allowing the algorithm to adapt to different tasks and situations.

* Effectiveness: Option-level search can find high-quality solutions while still being efficient.

Overall, ηMCTS provides an efficient way for LLMs to explore the space of possible responses and find the best ones,
even when dealing with large vocabularies and complex tasks.
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Comparing Search Levels in ηMCTS

The different ways ηMCTS can search for solutions, focusing on the concept of search nodes and their impact on
efficiency and flexibility.
1. Levels of Search:
* Token-Level: Each word (token) is considered as a separate step in the search. This leads to a massive search
space, making it difficult to explore thoroughly.
* Sentence-Level: Each sentence is considered as a step. This reduces the search space but might miss important
details and nuances within sentences.
* Option-Level: Groups of words (options) of varying lengths are considered as steps. This balances efficiency and
flexibility, allowing for a more comprehensive search.
2. Options as Building Blocks:
* An option is like a mini-plan that includes a starting point, a way to generate text (using the LLM), and a way to
decide when to stop.
* Options can be short or long, depending on the task and the situation.
3. Advantages of Option-Level Search:
* Reduced Search Space: By grouping words into options, the number of steps to consider becomes smaller, making
the search more manageable.
* Deeper Exploration: With a smaller search space, the algorithm can explore more possibilities and find better
solutions.
* Flexibility: Options can adapt to different situations, allowing for a more nuanced search compared to the fixed
size of sentences.
* Efficient Feedback: Grouping words reduces the number of times the algorithm needs to ask for feedback, saving
time and resources.
4. Example:
* Imagine the task is to write a story.
* Token-level search would consider each word choice separately.
* Sentence-level search would consider each sentence as a step.
* Option-level search could consider options like "describe the setting," "introduce the main character," or "build
suspense." This allows the algorithm to focus on the important parts of the story and find a more creative and
engaging narrative.

Overall, option-level search in ηMCTS provides a powerful and flexible way to explore the space of possible solutions
and find the best ones for a given task.

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Improving Search Efficiency with Diverse Options

ηMCTS ensures that it explores a wide range of possibilities during the search process, making it more efficient and
effective.
1. The Problem of Similar Options:
* During the search, the algorithm might encounter options that are very similar to each other.
* Exploring these similar options can be redundant and waste valuable search time.
2. Promoting Diversity with Move Groups:
* To address this, ηMCTS uses "move groups" to organize options based on their similarities.
* This helps ensure that the algorithm explores a diverse set of options, covering more possibilities with limited
resources.
3. How Move Groups Work:
* When a new option is generated, it is compared to existing options using a "distance function." This function
measures how similar the new option is to the existing ones.
* If the new option is sufficiently different, it forms a new group. Otherwise, it is merged with an existing group.
* This process continues until a maximum number of groups is reached or a certain level of diversity is achieved.
4. Benefits of Move Groups:
* Efficiency: By avoiding redundant exploration of similar options, the algorithm can focus on exploring a wider
range of possibilities.
* Coverage: Move groups help ensure that the search covers a larger portion of the potential solution space.
* Quality: By exploring diverse options, the algorithm is more likely to find high-quality solutions.
5. Algorithm 2: Finding Diverse Options:
* This algorithm outlines the process of finding diverse options using a distance threshold and a maximum
number of attempts.
* It ensures that new options are sufficiently different from existing ones before adding them to the pool of
possibilities.

Overall, the use of move groups in ηMCTS promotes diversity in the search process, leading to a more efficient and
effective exploration of the solution space.

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ALPHALLM Performance and Comparisons

The results of testing ALPHALLM on two datasets and compares its performance to other large language models.
1. Datasets and Evaluation:
* ALPHALLM was tested on two datasets: GSM8K (for solving grade school math problems) and MATH (for
solving more complex math problems).
* The performance was measured by comparing the model's answers to the correct solutions.
2. Key Findings:
* ALPHALLM outperformed larger models: Despite using less training data, ALPHALLM achieved better results
than LLaMA-2 70B and WizardMath 70B V1.0 on both datasets. This highlights the effectiveness of the self-
improvement framework.
* Self-improvement led to significant gains: After two rounds of self-improvement, ALPHALLM's performance
became comparable to GPT-4, a state-of-the-art model. This demonstrates the potential of self-improvement for
enhancing LLMs' problem-solving abilities.
* Efficiency in data usage: ALPHALLM achieved high performance using only final answer annotations, while
other models required additional annotations like explanations (rationales). This shows that ALPHALLM can
effectively learn from limited data.
3. Performance Comparison:
* This table provides a detailed comparison of ALPHALLM with other models on the GSM8K and MATH datasets.
* It shows the amount of data used for training and the types of annotations used.
* The results demonstrate the effectiveness of ALPHALLM and its self-improvement approach.

Overall, these findings suggest that ALPHALLM's imagination-searching-criticizing self-improvement framework is a

promising approach for improving LLMs' capabilities in complex problem-solving tasks, even with limited training
data.

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Above Table compares how different search methods perform on two datasets: GSM8K and MATH. It also shows
how these methods do when they get different numbers of responses (from 10 to 50).

The analysis of the table reveals some important findings:

* ORM Reranking is better than Self-Consistency: Using Object-Role Modeling (ORM) to rerank the search results
consistently leads to better outcomes than relying on self-consistency techniques. This shows that ORM can
create useful signals for improving search results.

* ηMCTS is Efficient and Effective: The ηMCTS method performs very well while needing significantly fewer
"rollouts" (a way to simulate possible outcomes). For example, on the MATH dataset, ηMCTS achieves better
results with only half the number of rollouts compared to reranking. This suggests that the design of ηMCTS
within ALPHALLM is a good way to improve search policies, allowing for the discovery of high-quality solutions
with less computational effort.

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Above Table explores how each part of ALPHALLM contributes to its performance. It looks at the results on the
GSM8K and MATH datasets.

GSM8K Results (Table a):

* Starting Point: A basic version of MCTS, with only a value function, achieves 84.9% accuracy. This is the baseline
for comparison.

* Adding Process Supervision: Including Process-Reward Modeling (PRM) improves the accuracy slightly to 85.9%.
This shows that supervising the search process is helpful.

* Further Improvements: The table also shows how other components like fast-rollout with ORM, state merging,
and using a large number of rollouts contribute to even better performance.

MATH Results (Table b):

* Benefits of Options and Tools: The proposed ηMCTS method, with options and tool-augmented ORM, achieves
45.4% accuracy with 148 rollouts.

* Options Make a Difference: When options are removed, performance drops to 44.1% and needs more rollouts
(198). This shows that options give MCTS more flexibility and improve efficiency.

* Tools are Crucial: The biggest drop in performance happens when ORM only uses internal knowledge, resulting
in 38.8% accuracy. This highlights the importance of external tools for solving complex math problems.

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Above Figure examines how different methods for collecting data and the number of self-improvement iterations
impact performance on the GSM8K dataset. The models are evaluated using three decoding methods: greedy
decoding, ηMCTS with a small number of rollouts, and ηMCTS with a large number of rollouts. Two rounds of self-
improvement are performed using data collected from both reranking and ηMCTS methods.

Key Observations:

* Self-Improvement Boosts Performance: Models trained on trajectories collected through either reranking or
ηMCTS significantly outperform the initial policy. Additionally, performance improves with each iteration of training,
suggesting that self-improvement can lead to continuous gains.

* ηMCTS Delivers Efficiency and Accuracy: While both reranking and ηMCTS can generate high-quality trajectories
for self-improvement, ηMCTS stands out for its efficiency and accuracy. Models trained on ηMCTS-generated
trajectories not only outperform those trained on reranked trajectories but also achieve comparable performance to
GPT-4 when decoded with ηMCTS. This demonstrates that ALPHALLM is an effective framework for self-
improvement.

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Q: What problem does AlphaLLM address?

AlphaLLM tackles the limitations of Large Language Models (LLMs) in handling complex reasoning and strategic
planning tasks.

Q: How does AlphaLLM work?

AlphaLLM integrates Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) with LLMs to create a self-improvement loop, enabling
learning and improvement without additional data annotations.

Q: What are the key components of AlphaLLM?

1. Imagination Component: Synthesizes prompts for diverse training data.
2. AdaMCTS Component: Efficiently searches for high-quality solutions using a modified MCTS algorithm.
3. Critic Models: Provide feedback to guide the search process and evaluate trajectory quality (Value Function,
Process Reward Model, and Outcome Reward Model).

Q: What are the benefits of integrating MCTS with LLMs?

* Efficient exploration of the search space in language tasks.
* Generation of high-quality trajectories for policy optimization.
* Self-improvement without additional data annotations.
* Improved LLM performance in complex problem-solving tasks.

Q: How is AlphaLLM's performance evaluated?

AlphaLLM outperforms baseline models on mathematical reasoning tasks and achieves performance comparable to
GPT-4 after self-improvement iterations.

Q: What are the limitations of AlphaLLM and proposed future work?

Limitations include the simplicity of current prompt generation methods, inferior performance of greedy sampling,
static critic models, and evaluation limited to mathematical reasoning. Future work will explore advanced
techniques, improve data utilization and model learning, and extend evaluation to other domains.

Q: Why are critic models important in AlphaLLM?

Critic models provide crucial feedback to guide the search process and facilitate self-improvement:
* Value Function: Guides the search towards rewarding paths.
* PRM: Encourages exploration of advantageous options.
* ORM: Ensures trajectories align with the desired goal.

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