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Computer Science > Artificial Intelligence

arXiv:2502.01584 (cs)
[Submitted on 3 Feb 2025 (v1), last revised 6 Feb 2025 (this version,
v2)]

Title:PhD Knowledge Not Required: A Reasoning Challenge for Large
Language Models

Authors:Carolyn Jane Anderson, Joydeep Biswas, Aleksander
Boruch-Gruszecki, Federico Cassano, Molly Q Feldman, Arjun Guha,
Francesca Lucchetti, Zixuan Wu
View a PDF of the paper titled PhD Knowledge Not Required: A
Reasoning Challenge for Large Language Models, by Carolyn Jane
Anderson and 7 other authors
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    Abstract:Existing benchmarks for frontier models often test
    specialized, ``PhD-level'' knowledge that is difficult for
    non-experts to grasp. In contrast, we present a benchmark based
    on the NPR Sunday Puzzle Challenge that requires only general
    knowledge. Our benchmark is challenging for both humans and
    models, however correct solutions are easy to verify, and models'
    mistakes are easy to spot.
    Our work reveals capability gaps that are not evident in existing
    benchmarks: OpenAI o1 significantly outperforms other reasoning
    models that are on par on benchmarks that test specialized
    knowledge. Furthermore, our analysis of reasoning outputs
    uncovers new kinds of failures. DeepSeek R1, for instance, often
    concedes with ``I give up'' before providing an answer that it
    knows is wrong. R1 can also be remarkably ``uncertain'' in its
    output and in rare cases, it does not ``finish thinking,'' which
    suggests the need for an inference-time technique to ``wrap up''
    before the context window limit is reached. We also quantify the
    effectiveness of reasoning longer with R1 and Gemini Thinking to
    identify the point beyond which more reasoning is unlikely to
    improve accuracy on our benchmark.

Subjects: Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI); Machine Learning (cs.LG)
Cite as:  arXiv:2502.01584 [cs.AI]
          (or arXiv:2502.01584v2 [cs.AI] for this version)
          https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2502.01584
          Focus to learn more
          arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite

Submission history

From: Arjun Guha [view email]
[v1] Mon, 3 Feb 2025 18:10:38 UTC (291 KB)
[v2] Thu, 6 Feb 2025 10:45:16 UTC (291 KB)
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    Anderson and 7 other authors
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