[R] Thought Propagation: An analogical approach to complex reasoning with LLMs

LLMs are great at basic reasoning when prompted, but still struggle with complex multi-step problems like optimization or planning. Humans tackle new problems by drawing on intuition from similar experiences, which LLMs can't do.

Researchers propose "Thought Propagation" to have LLMs reason more like humans - by thinking analogically. First, GPT is prompted to suggest related "analogous" problems to the input. Then it solves those. Finally, it aggregates the solutions to directly solve the input problem or extract useful strategies. …

basic humans intuition llms machinelearning optimization planning propagation reason reasoning researchers thinking thought