2404.05966

# \methodname: Reasoning with Intermediate Revision and Search **Authors**: Yizhou Chi, Kevin Yang, Dan Klein, UC Berkeley Abstract We present \methodname, a general reasoning and search method for tasks with outputs that can be decomposed into components. \methodname explores a search tree of potential solutions using Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS), building solutions one action at a time and evaluating according to any domain-specific heuristic, which in practice is often simply an LLM evaluator. Critically, our action space includes revision actions: \methodname may choose to revise part of its previous output rather than continuing to build the rest of its output. Empirically, \methodname outperforms state-of-the-art reasoning methods across three challenging tasks: Story Outline Improvement (up to +30% interestingness), Mini-Crosswords Solving (up to +16% word success rate), and Constrained Generation (up to +10% concept coverage). \methodname : Reasoning with Intermediate Revision and Search Yizhou Chi and Kevin Yang and Dan Klein UC Berkeley {yizhouchi,yangk, klein}@berkeley.edu 1 Introduction While large language models (LLMs) such as GPT (Brown et al., 2020; OpenAI, 2024), LLaMA (Touvron et al., 2023a, b), and Claude (Anthropic, 2024) are increasingly capable at performing a variety of reasoning tasks, recent studies have revealed that the utilization of distinct prompting strategies and instructional guidance can have a notable influence on the performance of LLMs when tackling identical tasks. Chain-of-Thought (CoT) is a prompting strategy detailed in Wei et al. (2023) that directs LLMs to produce the final task output through intermediate steps of reasoning, referred to as "intermediate thoughts." Notably, CoT has demonstrated a substantial enhancement in the problem-solving proficiency of LLMs without necessitating any model updates. Self-consistency with CoT (CoT-SC) (Wang et al., 2023a) proposes to improve output consistency by generating multiple CoTs and selecting the best outcome. Recently, extending CoT and CoT-SC, Tree-of-Thoughts (Yao et al., 2023a) and Graph-of-Thoughts (Besta et al., 2024) propose to shape the reasoning process of LLMs as a tree or an arbitrary graph structure. These approaches enable LLMs to explore different paths of thought and find better outputs by utilizing backtracking and graph-search algorithms. However, these approaches’ reasoning capabilities are often limited by the set of candidates they generate at earlier steps. They cannot revise and edit their original answers continuously in later steps. As a result, these methods may not be as effective in addressing problems that require frequent revision and modifications. We propose \methodname, a tree-based framework that emulates human reasoning by enabling LLMs to create interconnected thought networks. A key feature is its self-revision mechanism, which iteratively improves outputs while generating new thought nodes. To address the vast search space in text generation, we use Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS), which efficiently navigates the search space and provides high-quality solutions, though not necessarily globally optimal. Our method includes three core modules: the thought evaluator, which gives textual and numerical feedback; the thought generator, which produces solutions based on initial instructions and feedback; and the decision simulator, which simulates lines of thought within the MCTS process to assess the potential value of different paths. <details> <summary>x1.png Details</summary>  ### Visual Description ## Flowchart: Decision Simulator Process ### Overview The diagram illustrates a decision-making process for an AI system, showing the flow from task description to solution generation and evaluation. It includes components for task analysis, solution proposal, self-evaluation, and iterative refinement. ### Components/Axes 1. **Main Flow**: - Selection → Expansion → Simulation → Backpropagation - Arrows indicate sequential processing steps 2. **Key Elements**: - **Task Description Box**: Contains problem statement and example items - **Current Solution Box**: Shows proposed action - **Feedback Box**: Requests solution refinement - **Thought Generator**: Produces multiple solution variations - **Self-Evaluation Box**: Identifies logical inconsistencies 3. **Visual Elements**: - Green circles: Selected nodes - Gray circles: Alternative options - Blue box: Self-evaluation component - Dashed lines: Iterative feedback loop ### Detailed Analysis 1. **Task Description**: - Contains example items: "bartender", "tomato", "spatula", "boat", "microphone", "vest", "into" - Requires inserting a tomato into a boat using a spatula 2. **Current Solution**: - "The bartender inserts a tomato into the boat using a spatula" 3. **Feedback Request**: - "Can you provide a revised solution?" 4. **Thought Generator Outputs**: - **Solution 1**: "The bartender drops the microphone... while throwing a tomato into the boat using a spatula" - **Solution 2**: "Using a microphone... bartender slips a tomato into the boat... holding a spatula" - **Solution 3**: "The bartender... uses a spatula to scoop a tomato into the boat while holding a microphone" 5. **Self-Evaluation**: - Identifies inconsistency: "It's weird to insert a tomato into a boat" - Highlights conceptual mismatch between items ### Key Observations 1. The system generates three distinct solution variations, each maintaining core elements while altering peripheral actions 2. Self-evaluation reveals awareness of contextual incongruity (tomato/boat combination) 3. Feedback loop suggests iterative refinement capability 4. Visual hierarchy emphasizes task description as the process foundation ### Interpretation This diagram demonstrates an AI's problem-solving architecture with built-in self-correction mechanisms. The process shows: - **Exploratory Search**: Multiple solution paths generated from single task description - **Contextual Awareness**: Self-evaluation identifies logical inconsistencies - **Iterative Refinement**: Feedback loop enables solution improvement - **Semantic Understanding**: Recognition of item relationships (e.g., spatula as tool for insertion) The self-evaluation component acts as a critical checkpoint, preventing execution of contextually inappropriate actions. The three solution variations demonstrate the system's ability to maintain core task requirements while exploring different implementation approaches. The explicit identification of the "weird" aspect suggests the system can flag potential errors before solution implementation. </details> Figure 1: Illustration of \methodname using Monte Carlo Tree Search on the Constrained Generation task. Each circle in the diagram represents a thought node generated by LLMs. Selection: choose a thought node $x$ based on a selection algorithm. Expansion: A new set of child nodes $X$ is generated using the initial instruction, the current node, and self-evaluated textual feedback. The zoom-in of the expansion phase demonstrates the use of the Thought Evaluator and the Thought Generator, which entails assessing and refining the current solution for the task 4.3. Simulation: a single node $x^{\prime}$ is randomly chosen from the set $X$ . This selected node $x^{\prime}$ generates further nodes in sequence for several steps, corresponding to our Decision Simulator. Backpropagation: The numerical feedback evaluated at the last node is propagated back to the root node. We evaluate \methodname on three challenging tasks for state-of-the-art language models: Story Outline Improvement, Mini-Crosswords Solving, and Constrained Generation. These tasks require advanced reasoning skills, varying degrees of exploration, and the ability for self-revision to achieve optimal results. Compared to state-of-the-art reasoning strategies as baselines, \methodname exhibits an up to 30% interestingness increase in Story Outline Improvement; up to 16% word success rate increase in Mini-Crossword Solving; and up to 10% concept coverage improvement in Constrained Generation. These findings underscore the efficacy of \methodname across diverse tasks. 2 Related Works Feedback Guided Generation. Human feedback has been shown to be effective in improving LLMs’ generation Tandon et al. (2022); Elgohary et al. (2021); Bai et al. (2022). However, human feedback is often costly and unable to be incorporated into an automated generation process. As a result, some works adopt a heuristic function to serve as an alternative to human feedback (Liu et al., 2022; Lu et al., 2022; Le et al., 2022; Welleck et al., 2022). Madaan et al. (2023); Shinn et al. (2023); Paul et al. (2024) introduce a mechanism for LLMs to produce self-reflective feedback to improve their outputs. Along with the model-generated feedback, Chen et al. (2023) uses execution results to help improve code generation. Likewise, Kim et al. (2023) introduces a critic step to improve the model’s performance in computer tasks. These approaches follow left-to-right linear processes, potentially overlooking alternative directions. In our work, each thought node having multiple children nodes allows for broader exploration, enhancing decision-making comprehensiveness. Graph Reasoning. To facilitate broader exploration in problem-solving, Yao et al. (2023a) and Xie et al. (2023) use a tree-search procedure where each node represents a partial solution, requiring a complete solution to combine multiple nodes. This method restricts modifications to intermediate nodes, making the final output reliant on initial candidates. Besta et al. (2024) proposed a graph-based paradigm that models LLM reasoning as an arbitrary graph, allowing combinations of connecting nodes. Our approach differs by permitting review and modification of intermediate nodes, even allowing them to be revised or expanded if initially complete. This flexibility improves expressivity and enables language models to correct initial mistakes. Several concurrent works Hui and Tu (2024); Tian et al. (2024); Chen et al. (2024) have recently explored integrating Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) with Large Language Models (LLMs). However, these approaches primarily focus on mathematical reasoning tasks or rely on external feedback, fine-tuned policies, or reward models. In contrast, our method operates entirely at inference time, requiring no additional model training or external feedback. LM Planning. Long-form generation and complex problem-solving often require high-level planning or outlining. Natural language outliners and structured schemas play integral roles in generating long-form content (Tian and Peng, 2022; Mirowski et al., 2022; Yang et al., 2022, 2023). There are also works that utilize LLMs to tackle complex tasks such as video games, fact-checking, housekeeping, and code optimization with planning using natural languages (Yao et al., 2023b; Huang et al., 2022a; Wang et al., 2023b; Huang et al., 2022b). Our work could also be seen as a generic task planner using LLMs that leverages Monte Carlo Tree Search to facilitate various tasks in diverse domains. 3 Method We treat each formal output of LMs as a thought node $x∈\{x^{0},x^{1},...x^{i}\}$ , where $x^{0}$ is the root node and the initial output provided by LMs given the task instruction $I$ . For instance, a thought node can be a few lines of items (Story Outline Improvement), a couple of words (Mini-Crosswords), or a sentence (Constrained Generation). To process the thought node and look for a better output, our method consists of three modules: thought evaluator, thought generator, and decision simulator. <details> <summary>x2.png Details</summary>  ### Visual Description ## Flowchart Diagram: Story Development Evaluation ### Overview The image depicts a flowchart evaluating story development elements for a novel outline. It includes an initial outline, an itemized evaluation, and three alternative story development paths with ratings. The diagram uses gray boxes for content, yellow boxes for ratings, and arrows to indicate progression. ### Components/Axes - **Main Sections**: - **Instruction Box** (top-left): Defines the task for a novel writer to create an engaging outline. - **Initial Outline Box** (center-top): Contains four story points about Jill and Molly's abilities and decisions. - **Itemized Evaluation Box** (center): Lists "Lack of suspense" as the primary critique. - **Robot Icon** (center-right): Visual element near the evaluation box. - **Three Alternative Paths** (bottom): Labeled [2]-[3], [3]-[4], and [1]-[2], each with story developments and ratings. - **Arrows**: Connect boxes to show narrative flow (e.g., from outline to evaluation to alternative paths). - **Ratings**: - Yellow boxes with "Interestingness" scores (5/10, 8/10, 7/10). ### Detailed Analysis 1. **Instruction Box**: - Text: "You are a popular novel writer... characters and unexpected twist." 2. **Initial Outline Box**: - Four story points: 1. Friends encourage ignoring mother's remarks. 2. Experimentation with morphing ability. 3. Realization of ability's importance. 4. Decision to keep ability secret for advantage. 3. **Itemized Evaluation Box**: - Critique: "Lack of suspense." - Robot icon adjacent to the box. 4. **Alternative Paths**: - **[2]-[3] (8/10)**: - Story points include accidental transformation into a dangerous creature, friendship tension, and secret-keeping. - **[3]-[4] (7/10)**: - Focus on discovering a dangerous secret and navigating lies/betrayal. - **[1]-[2] (...)**: - Incomplete (ellipsis), implying unresolved character development. ### Key Observations - **Ratings Correlation**: - The [2]-[3] path (8/10) introduces higher stakes (dangerous transformations, friendship conflict) compared to [3]-[4] (7/10), which emphasizes secrecy and betrayal. - The [1]-[2] path lacks a rating, suggesting unresolved development. - **Narrative Progression**: - Arrows indicate a linear flow from the initial outline to evaluation, then branching into alternative paths. - The robot icon may symbolize analytical evaluation or AI-assisted critique. ### Interpretation - **Story Development Impact**: - The highest-rated path ([2]-[3]) introduces external conflict (dangerous transformations) and interpersonal tension, aligning with the instruction to "engage readers with captivating characters and unexpected twists." - The [3]-[4] path focuses on internal conflict (secrets, betrayal), which is rated slightly lower, possibly due to reduced action-driven engagement. - The missing rating for [1]-[2] highlights a gap in character development, as noted in the initial evaluation ("Lack of character development"). - **Design Intent**: - The flowchart visually emphasizes the importance of conflict and suspense in storytelling, as reflected in the evaluation and ratings. - The use of color (yellow for ratings, green for story text) distinguishes evaluative elements from narrative content. - **Anomalies**: - The [1]-[2] path's incomplete rating suggests an unresolved critique, potentially indicating a need for further development in character arcs. This diagram underscores how narrative choices (e.g., introducing danger vs. secrecy) directly influence perceived engagement, with higher ratings tied to dynamic character interactions and external stakes. </details> Figure 2: Illustration of our Story Outline Improvement task. A step involves employing the thought evaluator to conduct itemized evaluations of the story outline and utilizing the thought generator to generate a candidate set of improved story outlines for task 4.1. 3.1 Thought Evaluator The thought evaluator evaluates the status of each thought node and provides feedback for potential improvement. It not only works as a heuristic for the search algorithm but also gives potential directions and guidance to generate new candidates. Feedback $f(x^{i})$ for a node $x^{i}$ consists of numerical feedback $f_{numeric}(x^{i})$ and natural language feedback $f_{NL}(x^{i})$ . The numerical feedback will be used as the evaluation score $v(x^{i})$ for the current node, and the natural language feedback will be used as context to generate child nodes. $$ \displaystyle f(x^{i})=\enspace<f_{NL}(x^{i}) \displaystyle,f_{numeric}(x^{i})> \displaystyle f_{numeric}(x^{i}) \displaystyle=v(x^{i}) \tag{1} $$ We present two types of natural language feedback, each beneficial for various task scenarios. Furthermore, these strategies are flexible, allowing for independent or combined utilization. - Holistic Evaluation: Evaluate the entire thought node as a unified whole to provide comprehensive feedback. This approach captures the core message and coherence of the node. The right side of the zoomed-in expansion phase in Figure 1 illustrates how the thought evaluator generates holistic feedback based on the task description and the current solution of the node. - Itemized Evaluation: Evaluate each sub-unit of the thought node individually, providing targeted feedback for each component. This method results in a list of feedback specific to each sub-unit, making it ideal when the thought node can be divided into distinct elements for localized evaluation. For instance, in the story outline task shown in Figure 2, breaking the outline into separate items allows for focused assessment and refinement. 3.2 Thought Generator Once we have evaluation feedback of the current node, we can form subsequent thought nodes that aim to improve the current output. Based on the task description $I$ , the current solution $x_{parent}$ , and the natural language feedback $f_{NL}$ provided by the self-evaluator, each thought node generates $k$ candidate thought nodes using a pre-trained LM with a parameter $\theta$ . A child node $x_{child}$ will be generated as follows: $$ \displaystyle x_{child}\sim p_{\theta}(x|I,x_{parent},f_{NL}(x_{parent})) \tag{3} $$ The left part of the zoomed-in expansion phase depicted in Figure 1 illustrates how \methodname leverages the task description, current solution, and evaluation feedback to produce a set of candidate nodes. 3.3 Decision Simulator \methodname is equipped with a decision simulator that enables it to simulate decisions at deeper layers and then backpropagate to update the score of the current decision. In other words, we are doing a rollout to get a better estimate of the reward for the node we are at. The behavior of the decision simulator is analogous to the processes in Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS; see Algorithm 1). It is possible to replace the decision simulator with other search algorithms such as DFS, BFS, or A* search (and we in fact run DFS as well in our experiments in Section 4), but MCTS provides a computational advantage by efficiently navigating complex search spaces, balancing exploration and exploitation to reach optimal solutions with fewer evaluations. Its incremental and iterative nature also scales well to large problem instances. MCTS explores potential moves and stores the outcomes in a search tree. With each search iteration, the tree expands, accumulating more information. As shown in Figure 1, MCTS can be divided into four phases: selection, expansion, simulation, and backpropagation. In the selection phase, a leaf node will be selected based on Upper Confidence Bound 1 (UCB1) Eqn 4 which prioritizes nodes that have not been explored extensively but show promise. Therefore, the UCB1 value of node $x$ takes into account not only the heuristic score $v(x)$ but also the total number of visits to the node itself, $n(x)$ , as well as its parent node, $n(x_{parent})$ . $$ \displaystyle UCB1(x)=v(x)+c\sqrt{\frac{\ln n(x_{parent})}{n(x)}} \tag{4} $$ In the expansion phase, the thought generator will expand the selected leaf node by generating a set of children nodes based on the feedback provided by the thought evaluator. In the simulation phase, a child node is picked from the newly generated set using a uniform distribution. In the subsequent iterations, however, we generate only a single node iteratively until the maximum simulation depth $d_{simulation}$ is reached. Finally, in the backpropagation phase, we update the reward of the last node generated in the simulation back to the root node and iterate this process for $d_{rollout}$ steps. The node with the highest average reward will be chosen as the final output. 4 Experiments We evaluate our method on three distinct tasks: Story Outline Improvement, Mini-Crossword Solving, and Constrained Generation. We evaluate the tasks with Chain-of-Thought (CoT) (Wei et al., 2023), Self-Refine (Madaan et al., 2023), and Tree-of-Thoughts (ToT) with DFS (Yao et al., 2023a) as baselines. We use GPT-3.5 (gpt-3.5-turbo-0125) and GPT-4 (gpt-4-0125-preview) (OpenAI, 2024) as strong base LMs for the reasoning algorithms across all tasks. Both base LMs use a temperature of 0.7. To further evaluate the efficacy of our proposed approach, we conduct an ablation study by investigating the performance of our method when employing Depth-First Search (DFS) (Algorithm 2) as an alternative search algorithm to the MCTS algorithm. In addition, running \methodname with DFS facilitates closer comparison with ToT, which also uses DFS. While \methodname with MCTS typically performs better, we observe in our experiments below that \methodname with DFS still outperforms our other baselines, demonstrating \methodname ’s ability to generalize to other search algorithms. 4.1 Story Outline Improvement | Methods Initial Outline | Base LLM GPT3.5 12.0 | GPT4 12.0 | | --- | --- | --- | | CoT | 50.1 | 28.8 | | Self-refine | 65.5 | 27.9 | | ToT | 72.1 | 49.9 | | \methodname (DFS) | 79.3 | 53.7 | | \methodname (MCTS) | 89.9 | 65.0 | Table 1: Average outline interestingness. Initial Outline is the starting point before rewriting with any reasoning method. \methodname ’s outputs are judged to be interesting at a higher percentage compared to baselines. One approach to generating long-form stories via LLMs is to adopt a high-level writing process that first designs an outline of the story and fills up the details based on the outline (Yang et al., 2022, 2023). An unengaging or uncompelling outline is unlikely to yield a captivating final draft, regardless of the subsequent detailing efforts. To address this challenge, we propose a task focused specifically on enhancing the interestingness of story outlines generated by LLMs. Task Setup We sample 500 book descriptions from the WhatsThatBook dataset (Lin et al., 2023) and generate story outlines using DOC (Yang et al., 2023) with GPT-3.5. We allocate 400 descriptions for training, 50 for validation, and 50 for testing. For each description, we generate three types of outlines: one prompted to be interesting, one prompted to be boring, and one without specific instructions. Since there is no ground truth for the interestingness of the outline, we employ an outline content evaluator to assess the final interestingness of generated or revised outlines. Neither \methodname nor the baselines have access to this evaluator during outline generation. We fine-tune the pre-trained Flan-T5 model (Chung et al., 2022) to serve as the content evaluator, training it to rate interesting outlines as 1 and boring ones as 0. This evaluator’s output serves as the score metric for the task. For evaluation, LMs revise and improve the interestingness of default outlines in the test set. The dataset includes 400 interesting and 400 non-interesting outlines for fine-tuning, 50 interesting and 50 non-interesting outlines for validation, and 50 outlines for testing algorithms. Also, we conduct human evaluation via Prolific to assess the generated story outlines (GPT-3.5 as the base LLM), capturing subjective perceptions and cultural nuances that LLMs may miss. We recruited annotators to evaluate 100 pairs of story outlines, each pair consisting of one outline generated by \methodname with MCTS and another by ToT or Self-Refine, with each pair annotated by two annotators. <details> <summary>x3.png Details</summary>  ### Visual Description ## Bar Chart: Proportion of Preference by Comparison Category ### Overview The chart compares the proportion of preference for three categories ("ThoughtSculpt (MCTS)", "Baselines", and "Neither") across two comparison groups: "vs. Self-Refine" and "vs. ToT". The y-axis represents the proportion of preference (0–60%), while the x-axis categorizes the comparisons. ### Components/Axes - **X-Axis**: - Categories: "vs. Self-Refine" (left), "vs. ToT" (right). - **Y-Axis**: - Label: "Proportion of Preference" (0–60% in increments of 10). - **Legend**: - Colors: - Blue: "ThoughtSculpt (MCTS)" - Orange: "Baselines" - Green: "Neither" - **Title**: - "Proportion of Preference by Comparison Category" (implied from labels). ### Detailed Analysis - **vs. Self-Refine**: - **ThoughtSculpt (MCTS)**: ~62% (blue bar, tallest). - **Baselines**: ~12% (orange bar, shortest). - **Neither**: ~24% (green bar, medium height). - **vs. ToT**: - **ThoughtSculpt (MCTS)**: ~49% (blue bar, tallest). - **Baselines**: ~25% (orange bar, medium height). - **Neither**: ~18% (green bar, shortest). ### Key Observations 1. **Dominance of ThoughtSculpt**: - ThoughtSculpt (MCTS) consistently has the highest preference in both comparisons, with a larger margin in "vs. Self-Refine" (~50% difference from Baselines) than in "vs. ToT" (~24% difference). 2. **Baselines vs. Neither**: - Baselines outperform "Neither" in "vs. ToT" (~25% vs. ~18%) but underperform in "vs. Self-Refine" (~12% vs. ~24%). 3. **Neither Category**: - "Neither" is most prominent in "vs. Self-Refine" (~24%), suggesting ambiguity or lower preference for alternatives in that comparison. ### Interpretation - **ThoughtSculpt (MCTS)** is the clear frontrunner in both scenarios, but its advantage over Baselines diminishes when compared to ToT, implying ToT may be a closer alternative to ThoughtSculpt than Self-Refine. - The "Neither" category’s higher proportion in "vs. Self-Refine" suggests that Self-Refine is less distinguishable from the other options, whereas ToT elicits more decisive preferences. - Baselines perform better against ToT than against Self-Refine, indicating that ToT may be a more effective benchmark or alternative in this context. </details> Figure 3: Proportion of outlines generated by each method that were preferred by humans in pairwise comparison. ("Neither" indicates that neither \methodname nor the baseline methods were preferred.) Method Setup Each method is allowed to search or iterate through a maximum depth of 3. The thought evaluator will perform an itemized evaluation on the current outline and provide an interesting score from 1 to 10 as the numerical feedback. Based on each itemized feedback, a child node will be proposed to modify the current outline in order to improve its interestingness. For \methodname and ToT, each node will generate a maximum of 3 candidate child outlines. In this and all the experiments below, \methodname with MCTS will have a maximum $d_{simulation}$ of 1. Figure 2 illustrates how the story outline is improved. <details> <summary>x4.png Details</summary>  ### Visual Description ## Line Graph: Interestingness vs. Number of Steps ### Overview The image is a line graph comparing the "Interestingness" metric across four different methods (ThoughtSculpt (MCTS), ThoughtSculpt (DFS), Self Refine, and ToT) as a function of the "Number of Steps" (0 to 3). The y-axis ranges from 0 to 1, and the x-axis is labeled "Number of Steps." The graph includes a legend with color-coded lines and markers for each method. ### Components/Axes - **X-axis**: "Number of Steps" (0, 1, 2, 3) - **Y-axis**: "Interestingness" (0 to 1) - **Legend**: - **Blue solid line**: ThoughtSculpt (MCTS) - **Orange dashed line**: ThoughtSculpt (DFS) - **Green dotted line**: Self Refine - **Red dash-dot line**: ToT - **Data Points**: Markers (circles) at each step for all methods. ### Detailed Analysis - **ThoughtSculpt (MCTS)** (Blue solid line): - Starts at ~0.1 at step 0. - Increases sharply to ~0.75 at step 1. - Rises to ~0.8 at step 2. - Peaks at ~0.9 at step 3. - **ThoughtSculpt (DFS)** (Orange dashed line): - Starts at ~0.1 at step 0. - Rises to ~0.65 at step 1. - Increases to ~0.8 at step 2. - Plateaus at ~0.8 at step 3. - **Self Refine** (Green dotted line): - Starts at ~0.1 at step 0. - Rises to ~0.7 at step 1. - Drops to ~0.65 at step 2. - Slightly decreases to ~0.65 at step 3. - **ToT** (Red dash-dot line): - Starts at ~0.1 at step 0. - Rises to ~0.6 at step 1. - Drops to ~0.6 at step 2. - Increases to ~0.7 at step 3. ### Key Observations 1. **ThoughtSculpt (MCTS)** consistently outperforms other methods, showing the steepest and highest growth. 2. **ThoughtSculpt (DFS)** and **Self Refine** exhibit similar trends but with different magnitudes: DFS peaks earlier and plateaus, while Self Refine peaks at step 1 and declines. 3. **ToT** shows a delayed increase, with a notable rise at step 3 compared to its earlier steps. 4. All methods start at the same low value (~0.1) at step 0, indicating a baseline similarity. ### Interpretation The data suggests that **ThoughtSculpt (MCTS)** is the most effective method for maximizing "Interestingness" across steps, likely due to its iterative refinement process (MCTS). **ThoughtSculpt (DFS)** and **Self Refine** demonstrate trade-offs: DFS prioritizes early gains but plateaus, while Self Refine achieves higher initial values but declines over time. **ToT**’s late increase may indicate a delayed optimization effect or a specific mechanism that becomes more impactful at later steps. The graph highlights the importance of method selection based on the desired balance between early performance and long-term growth. ### Spatial Grounding - The legend is positioned in the **bottom-right corner**, clearly associating colors with methods. - Data points (circles) are placed at the intersection of each step and method, with error bars (vertical lines) indicating uncertainty. - The x-axis and y-axis are labeled in the **bottom-left** and **top-left** corners, respectively. ### Content Details - **Values**: - Step 0: All methods ~0.1. - Step 1: MCTS ~0.75, DFS ~0.65, Self Refine ~0.7, ToT ~0.6. - Step 2: MCTS ~0.8, DFS ~0.8, Self Refine ~0.65, ToT ~0.6. - Step 3: MCTS ~0.9, DFS ~0.8, Self Refine ~0.65, ToT ~0.7. - **Trends**: - MCTS shows a **linear upward trend**. - DFS and Self Refine exhibit **non-linear growth** with peaks and plateaus. - ToT has a **delayed increase** at step 3. ### Notable Anomalies - **Self Refine**’s decline after step 1 is unusual, suggesting potential overfitting or diminishing returns. - **ToT**’s late increase at step 3 may indicate a hidden mechanism or a specific condition not captured in earlier steps. ### Final Notes The graph provides a clear comparison of method performance, emphasizing the superiority of MCTS. However, the exact nature of "Interestingness" and the underlying mechanisms of each method are not explained, leaving room for further investigation. The data underscores the need for context-specific method selection in optimization tasks. </details> Figure 4: Average outline interestingness at each step. \methodname ’s interestingness increases more with steps compared to baselines. <details> <summary>x5.png Details</summary>  ### Visual Description ## Flowchart: 5x5 Mini Crossword Solver Process ### Overview This diagram illustrates the process of solving a 5x5 mini crossword puzzle using automated reasoning and holistic evaluation. The workflow includes clue interpretation, candidate word generation, pattern matching, and final validation through a robotic evaluation system. ### Components/Axes 1. **Instruction Panel** (Left) - Text: "Let's play a 5 × 5 mini crossword... words based on the clues provided." - Grid Layout: 5x5 crossword template with initial letters: ``` C X X X X R X X X X E X X X X S I E V E T X X X X ``` 2. **Candidate Set Box** (Center) - Contains two word candidates with reasoning: - **h1. CANST**: Fits "C___" pattern and definition - **v2. OUSIA**: Fits "__I_" pattern and definition 3. **Holistic Evaluation** (Bottom Center) - Blue box with robot icon (🤖) - Represents automated validation process 4. **Output Panels** (Right) - **Top Panel**: Final crossword solution: ``` CANST RXXXX EXXXX SIEVE TXXXX ``` - **Bottom Panels**: Alternative candidate sets: - First: ``` COXXX RUXXX ESXXX SIEVE TAXXX ``` - Second: Identical to first (duplicate) ### Detailed Analysis - **Crossword Grid**: - First column contains fixed letters: C, R, E, S, T - Second column shows partial word "SIEVE" in row 4 - All other positions marked with X (unknown letters) - **Candidate Validation**: - h1. CANST: Matches initial "C" and 5-letter requirement - v2. OUSIA: Fits vertical pattern "__I_" and 5-letter requirement - Both candidates pass definition checks - **Evaluation Flow**: - Candidate words → Holistic Evaluation → Final solution - Arrows indicate directional flow between components ### Key Observations 1. **Pattern Matching**: - Horizontal word "CANST" aligns with first column's "C" - Vertical word "OUSIA" matches second column's "I" in row 2 2. **Redundancy**: - Duplicate candidate sets appear in bottom output panels 3. **Automation**: - Robot icon symbolizes AI-assisted validation process ### Interpretation This diagram demonstrates a systematic approach to crossword solving through: 1. **Pattern Recognition**: Matching initial letters to grid constraints 2. **Semantic Validation**: Checking word definitions against clues 3. **Holistic Verification**: Using automated systems to confirm solutions The presence of duplicate candidate sets suggests either: - Redundant processing paths in the evaluation system - Alternative valid solutions that were ultimately rejected The robotic evaluation component implies machine learning or rule-based systems are used to: - Verify word definitions - Confirm pattern consistency - Validate crossword grid integrity The final solution shows successful resolution of the puzzle through this multi-stage process, with "SIEVE" being the only fully revealed word in the initial grid. </details> Figure 5: Illustration of a step in the deliberation process in the Mini-Crosswords task, where the current crossword board is assessed using the thought evaluator and a candidate set of words is proposed for task 4.2. One step is equal to one $d_{rollout}$ Results As illustrated in Table 1, all methods unsurprisingly improve the level of interestingness relative to the initial outline (sampled from default outlines with no prompting for either interesting or boring). However, overall, \methodname outperforms ToT even with DFS, while \methodname with MCTS demonstrates the highest average interestingness percentage across both GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 with 89.9 and 65.0 respectively. One possible explanation for why GPT-4, serving as the base LM, exhibits lower overall interestingness could be attributed to the fact that the outline content evaluator was trained on outlines generated using GPT-3.5. As Figure 3 shown, human annotators also gave a higher preference towards \methodname with MCTS outputs comparing with other baselines, agreeing with the prior evaluation results. Moreover, our strong performance comes at only a modest increase in computational cost compared to baselines. We compute the average token cost of \methodname for this task along with other tasks in Appendix B. \methodname with DFS has a cost comparable to ToT, while the higher-performing \methodname with MCTS requires 1.2x more computation than ToT due to its additional decision simulation process. Continuous Improvement Figure 4 illustrates the progression of story outline interestingness at various steps, employing GPT-3.5 as the base LM. Among the tested methods, only \methodname with MCTS has exhibited a consistent pattern of improvement over time. In contrast, both ToT and Self-refine exhibit a lack of continuous improvement. We suppose that Self-refine’s limited search space and ToT’s absence of a revision process contribute to this phenomenon. | CoT Self-refine ToT | 10.5 13.5 19.5 | 34.6 27.4 36.6 | 0.0 5.0 0.0 | 15.6 46.5 39.5 | 40.6 74.8 64.8 | 5.0 5.0 5.0 | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | \methodname (DFS) | 14.0 | 33.2 | 0.0 | 46.5 | 68.2 | 20.0 | | \methodname (MCTS) | 19.0 | 41.6 | 0.0 | 54.0 | 74.0 | 25.0 | Table 2: Mini-crossword results of 20 puzzles for \methodname and baselines (success % of letters, words, and games). \methodname with MCTS is either best or closely comparable to best across the board. 4.2 Mini crosswords We also explore our method on 5x5 mini crosswords following the setup of Yao et al. (2023a). For every puzzle, there are five horizontal (h1 to h5) and five vertical (v1 to v5) words to be filled. The task is to solve a five-by-five crossword puzzle in several steps (either filling or editing a word counts as one step). For evaluation, we check the proportion of letters, words, and games correctly filled by each reasoning method. Method Setup Each thought node represents a (possibly partial) solution to the crossword puzzle. To evaluate each thought node, the LM is prompted to evaluate each clue against the filled-in letters and suggest whether it is reasonable. For example, if the first row is filled with "AMIGO" and nothing else is filled, then the first column will be shown as "A____". Thus, in the prompt, there will be one line "v1. A Mennonite sect, named for Jacob Ammann: A____" that asks the LM to determine whether there are potential answers. The node evaluation’s prompt setup is similar to (Yao et al., 2023a) ’s except that we use the evaluation feedback to generate new candidates instead of pruning branches. Based on the evaluation feedback, every candidate for a node will be generated to either suggest a new word to fill a blank space or propose a modification to a word already filled in. For each node, \methodname and ToT generate a maximum of 3 candidates. In contrast to the setup in Yao et al. (2023a), where maximum search steps is set to 100, we impose a constraint on all methods to utilize only 20 search steps. This constraint aims to prevent attempts to artificially boost performance by exhaustively trying numerous word possibilities. With this restriction, each row or column of the crossword puzzle allows, on average, only two word attempts to be made within the allocated search budget. Figure 5 illustrates how \methodname approaches to solve a crossword puzzle. Results As shown in Table 8, \methodname with MCTS attains the highest letter success rate using GPT-3.5 and the highest word and game success rate using GPT-4; it is also always at least comparable to the best in all cases. With limited search steps, it is surprising that ToT using GPT-4 performs worse than even Self-refine; it turns out that a self-revision mechanism is important in this task. \methodname with MCTS achieves comparable performance to that reported by ToT (Yao et al., 2023a) using 100 search steps, despite employing just 20 search steps in our experiment. 4.3 Constrained Generation CommonGen is a benchmark dataset and a constrained text generation task designed to evaluate LMs’ abilities in generative commonsense reasoning (Lin et al., 2020). An example instruction for the task is shown in Appendix A.3. However, currently, the coverage test of CommonGen can be completed with 90% or higher accuracy by many LLMs with one-shot prompting. Therefore, we instead test on CommonGen-Hard as introduced by (Madaan et al., 2023). Rather than just four concepts, CommonGen-Hard requires models to generate a sentence with 20-30 concepts. Method Setup In this task, we first provide the set of concepts required and the task description for the LM to generate an initial thought node. During the thought evaluation, the LM will be prompted to give feedback about the quality of the concepts used and whether there are any missing concepts. A child node will be generated using the feedback along with the current solution. We set a maximum depth of 3 for this task. For each node, both \methodname and ToT will generate a maximum of 3 child candidates. | CoT Self-refine ToT | 44.1 70.0 54.8 | 96.1 98.5 98.8 | | --- | --- | --- | | \methodname (DFS) | 79.6 | 99.1 | | \methodname (MCTS) | 77.9 | 99.0 | Table 3: Constrained Generation Results (% Coverage of Concepts). \methodname outperforms all baselines on both base LMs. Results Table 3 shows that \methodname outperforms all other baselines when using either GPT-3.5 or GPT-4 as the base LM. While \methodname with DFS achieves the highest coverage of 79.6% (GPT-3.5) and 99.1% (GPT-4), \methodname with MCTS also demonstrates comparable concept coverage of 77.9% using GPT-3.5 and 99.0% using GPT-4. While MCTS exhibits notable exploration capabilities, it fails to surpass DFS due to the task’s nature, where effective solutions are abundant as long as generated sentences correctly integrate assigned concepts. DFS, employing a greedy approach prioritizing nodes with the highest concept coverage, outperforms MCTS in this context. However, solely relying on concept coverage does not ensure appropriate concept utilization. Hence, we conduct an additional evaluation using GPT-4 to determine the preferred output based on concept coverage and appropriateness. Figure 6, comparing \methodname with MCTS against \methodname with DFS and a third baseline (intuitively, representing the case where neither \methodname version’s output is good), indicates that \methodname with MCTS is significantly favored. 5 Conclusion We introduce \methodname, a framework designed to empower LLMs to handle complex tasks requiring continuous refinement and reasoning capabilities, all without necessitating any modifications or updates to the underlying model architecture. By harnessing Monte Carlo Tree Search (MCTS), \methodname enables LLMs to effectively explore vast search spaces while managing computational resource costs efficiently. Moreover, \methodname facilitates a seamless self-revision process, allowing LLMs to iteratively refine and improve their outputs without the need for extensive prompt engineering. Through our experiments, we illustrate \methodname ’s potential across diverse tasks, highlighting its versatility and broad applicability. The results underscore \methodname ’s capacity to enhance LLM performance in challenges requiring continuous thought iteration, such as open-ended generation, multi-step reasoning, and creative ideation. Limitations While \methodname presents a promising approach for reasoning during inference, its reliance on multiple calls to the base language model incurs a higher computational cost than most sampling methods. Consequently, in scenarios where base language models already demonstrate satisfactory performance, the adoption of \methodname may not be advisable. However, \methodname proves beneficial for tasks requiring intricate reasoning, potential for continual improvement, or when the base language model’s performance is suboptimal. Furthermore, the incorporation of MCTS enables \methodname to navigate complex search spaces, striking a balance between exploration and exploitation, and handling scalability concerns, thereby offering computational advantages over alternative search algorithms. Ethics Statement We affirm that all datasets utilized in our experiments have been appropriately sourced and cited, adhering to principles of academic integrity and proper attribution. Our experiments primarily leverage GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 as the base LLMs. These models possess remarkable capabilities in generating human-like text based on prompts. However, we acknowledge the ethical concerns surrounding their potential misuse for spreading misinformation, generating harmful content, or impersonating individuals. We recognize the imperative for ethical considerations to include robust mechanisms aimed at preventing misuse and fostering responsible use of these models. The purpose of \methodname is to enhance the reasoning and complex problem-solving capabilities of Language Models (LMs). However, it is essential to acknowledge that \methodname does not inherently include mechanisms to prevent LMs from generating harmful content. Therefore, we strongly advise anyone utilizing our model to exercise caution and be mindful of the potential for misuse. Users must take proactive measures to mitigate the risk of harmful content generation by implementing effective safeguards and appropriate controls. Reproducibility In our experiments, we aim for transparency and reproducibility by utilizing publicly accessible datasets. Furthermore, for the content evaluator utilized in the story outline improvement task, we employed Flan-T5, an open-source model. To facilitate reproducibility, our codebase will also be made available for reference and validation upon publication. 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React: Synergizing reasoning and acting in language models. Preprint, arXiv:2210.03629. Appendix A Prompts Generally, \methodname requires only three prompts: TASK_DESCRIPTION, NEW_CANDIDATE, and EVALUATE_CURRENT. 1. TASK_DESCRIPTION is the general instruction for the specific task. It will be placed in front of rest of the prompts. 1. NEW_CANDIDATE is the prompt to generate new candidates based on the evaluation feedback and the current solution. 1. EVALUATE_CURRENT instructs the language model to evaluate the current solution. The prompt can be tailored to ask for itemized evaluations, holistic evaluations, or both. A.1 Task 1 Story Outline Improvement {python} TASK_DESCRIPTION = """ # Task Description You are a popular novel writer. You are now making an interesting outline for the story. You know how to engage with the readers by not limited to introducing interesting characters and unexpected twist. You also know how to make the story outline coherent and consistent. """ NEW_CANDIDATE = TASK_DESCRIPTION + """ # Original Outline outline # Feedback feedback Based on the feedback and the task description, can you make a better story outline by replacing the items suggested by the feedback? Write the outline in this format just like the original outline from [1] to [num]: [1] … [2] … … # Your response: """ EVALUATE_CURRENT = TASK_DESCRIPTION + """ # Original Outline outline Do you think that this outline is good enough? Write a score from 1 to 100 where 100 means the outline is perfect based on the task description, and provide an explanation on strengths and weaknesses. Please be specific. # Write in this format: [score: 1-100] [reason] xxx (50 words max) # Example: [score: 50] [reason] the current outline is too predictable # Your response: """ EVALUATE_CURRENT_ITEMIZED = TASK_DESCRIPTION + """ Here is a story outline. outline Which continuous num_consecutive_lines outlines items do you think are least interesting? The interesting outline items should engage readers to read the story. Otherwise, it’s boring and should be revised. The interesting level would be from 1 to 5, where 1 is the least interesting and 5 is the most interesting. Write in this format: Thought Process: … [reason: too repetitive/cliche plot/unsurprising/etc] [start_index]-[end_index] [interesting level: 1-10] Example: Thought Process: Outline items 9 and 10 talks about the same thing over outline items 7 and 8. It’s too repetitive. [reason: too repetitive] [9]-[10] [interesting level: 5] Can you provide num_candidates proposals? # Your response: """ Fine-tuned story outline content evaluator The content evaluator for the story outline is fine-tuned on a Flan-T5 model with a learning rate of 3e-4 and a weight decay of 0.1, trained over 5 epochs. {python} PROMPT = """ Given the story outlines above, do you think that the new story point below is interesting? """ A.2 Task 2 Mini-Crossword Solving {python} TASK_DESCRIPTION = """ Task Description: Let’s play a 5 x 5 mini crossword, where each word should have exactly 5 letters. Your goal is to fill in the crossword with words based on the hints provided. """ NEW_CANDIDATE = TASK_DESCRIPTION + """ #Current board: obs #Strategy: feedback Given the current status of the board and the strategy, list all possible answers for unfilled or changed words, and your confidence levels (certain/high/medium/low), using the format like this: Use "certain" cautiously and only when you are 100 h1. [hint: _____] xxxxx (medium) h2. [hint: _____] xxxxx (certain) … v1. [hint: _____] xxxxx (high) … Write your response in the format: h1. [A financial loss; a negative profit; to remove bits from: D_B__] DEBTS (low) h2. [Fatuous; empty headed: _____] INANE (high) … v1. [A dice player; something that cuts into small cubes: _____] DICER (high) v5. [An Indian tent: _____] TEPEE (medium) Each line can only have one candidate answer. #Your response: """ EVALUATE_CURRENT = TASK_DESCRIPTION + """ # Current board: obs Evaluate the current board and provide a strategy on how to continue to fill in the blank or correct potential mistakes. Write your response in the format: v1. [reasoning and potential answers] v2. [reasoning and potential answers] … h1. [reasoning and potential answers] … # Example: v2. [Current answer: tough; since the filled in h1. is debit; e is conflicted with t, we could consider other options such as ENURE] v3. [Current answer: ??? CUTUP could be a potential answer] # Your response: """ A.3 Task 3 Constrained Generation {python} TASK_DESCRIPTION = """ # Instruction Given several concepts (i.e., nouns or verbs), write a short and simple sentence that contains *all* the required words. The sentence should describe a common scene in daily life, and the concepts should be used in a natural way. # # Examples # ## Example 1 - Concepts: "dog, frisbee, catch, throw" - Sentence: The dog catches the frisbee when the boy throws it into the air. # ## Example 2 - Concepts: "apple, place, tree, pick" - Sentence: A girl picks some apples from a tree and places them into her basket. """ INSTRUCTION = """ Your Task - Concepts: concepts """ NEW_CANDIDATE = TASK_DESCRIPTION + """ Instruction: instruct Here is a proposed sentence. solution Here is the feedback of outline item. feedback Based on the feedback, can you make a revised solution? # Sentence: """ EVALUATE_CURRENT = TASK_DESCRIPTION + """ Instruction: instruct Here is a proposed sentence. solution Do you think that the proposed sentence is good enough? Write "no need to improve" if you think 1) the sentence covers all the concepts listed in the instruction; and 2) the sentence describes a common scene in daily life. Otherwise, write "still need to improve" and provide a reason. # Write in this format: [No need to improve/still need to improve] [reason] xxx (50 words max) # Example 1: [still need to improve] the sentence misses the concept "dog", "ladder", and "drum". # Example 2: [still need to improve] the cat does not fly. # Your response: """ Appendix B Computation Efficiency Table 4, Table 5, and Table 6 show the estimated number of input/output tokens usage and the cost of completing one case. \methodname with DFS has a comparable cost to ToT while \methodname with MCTS requires a greater computation since it has an additional decision simulation process. | ToT \methodname with DFS \methodname with MCTS | 10.1k/4.9k 11.3k/4.6k 25.0k/9.9k | $0.248 $0.251 $0.547 | | --- | --- | --- | Table 4: Token use and estimated cost for Story Outline Improvement (Base LLM: gpt-4-0125-preview) | ToT \methodname with DFS \methodname with MCTS | 64.5k/8.9k 41.6k/7.1k 100.2k/16.3k | $0.912 $0.629 $1.491 | | --- | --- | --- | Table 5: Token use and estimated cost for Mini-Crossword (Base LLM: gpt-4-0125-preview) | ToT \methodname with DFS \methodname with MCTS | 7.1k/1.1k 7.0k/0.7k 15.7k/2.0k | $0.104 $0.091 $0.217 | | --- | --- | --- | Table 6: Token use and estimated cost for Constrained Generation (Base LLM: gpt-4-0125-preview) Appendix C Alternative Search Algorithm Algorithm 1 \methodname with MCTS 1: Input: Initial node $x_{0}$ 2: Output: Output node $x^{*}$ 3: Initialize empty search tree $T$ 4: for $j← 1$ to $d_{rollout}$ do 5: Select a leaf node $x$ using the tree policy UCB1 Eqn 4 6: Expand node $x$ by generating a set of children nodes $X_{\text{child}}$ 7: node $x←\text{uniformly\_sampled}(X_{\text{child}})$ 8: for $k← 1$ to $d_{simulation}$ do 9: node $x←\text{generate\_single\_child}(x)$ 10: end for 11: Evaluate reward $v(x)$ 12: Propagate the reward $v$ and number of explorations $n$ back to $x_{0}$ 13: end for 14: Choose the best node $x^{*}$ with the highest reward $v$ 15: return $x^{*}$ Algorithm 2 \methodname with DFS 1: Input: Initial node $x$ , Depth $d$ 2: Output: Goal node $x^{*}$ 3: $x← x_{0}$ 4: if $d=0$ then 5: return $x$ 6: end if 7: Expand node $x$ by generating a set of children nodes $X_{\text{child}}$ 8: for $k← 1$ to $max\_candidates$ do 9: Evaluate reward $v(X_{child}[k])$ 10: end for 11: Choose the node $x^{*}$ with the highest reward $v$ in $X_{child}$ 12: $DFS(x^{*},d-1)$ Appendix D Output Examples D.1 Story Outline Improvement The examples below show the final outputs of each reasoning algorithm in the story outline improvement task. In general, \methodname with MCTS displays a more complex story with a greater tendency to introduce twists and characters. The final output of \methodname with MCTS may be greatly modified. Self Refine is less prone to change from the initial outline. ToT and \methodname with DFS are in the middle and would like to add interesting details to the initial outlines. D.1.1 Example 1 Initial Outline: 1. Jack arrives in Maine and starts attending the same high school as Leo. 1. Jack begins observing Leo’s daily routine and interests to find common ground. 1. Jack strategically plans his first encounter with Leo to establish a connection. 1. Jack successfully befriends Leo and starts spending more time together. 1. Jack and Leo spend more time together, deepening their bond. 1. Jack and Leo’s attraction becomes undeniable, leading to their first kiss. 1. Jack and Leo navigate the challenges of their secret relationship. 1. Jack and Leo’s love for each other grows stronger, despite the risks involved. 1. The Center orders Jack to cut ties with Leo and leave Maine immediately. 1. Jack struggles with the decision to leave Leo and return to the Center. 1. Leo’s father becomes a target of the Center’s operation, putting Leo in danger. 1. Jack risks his own safety to protect Leo and his father, defying the Center’s orders. Self Refine: 1. Jack arrives in Maine and starts attending the same high school as Leo. 1. Jack begins observing Leo’s daily routine and interests to find common ground. 1. Jack strategically plans his first encounter with Leo to establish a connection. 1. Jack successfully befriends Leo and starts spending more time together. 1. Jack and Leo spend more time together, deepening their bond. 1. Jack and Leo’s attraction becomes undeniable, leading to their first kiss. 1. Jack and Leo navigate the challenges of their secret relationship. 1. Jack and Leo’s love for each other grows stronger, despite the risks involved. 1. The Center orders Jack to cut ties with Leo and leave Maine immediately. 1. Jack struggles with the decision to leave Leo and return to the Center. 1. A mysterious organization threatens to expose Jack and Leo’s relationship, putting their lives in danger. 1. Jack must make a decision to protect Leo and himself, risking everything to defy both the Center and the new threat. ToT: 1. Jack arrives in Maine and starts attending the same high school as Leo. 1. Jack is immediately drawn to Leo’s mysterious and aloof demeanor, sparking his curiosity. 1. Jack discovers Leo’s passion for art and secretly starts leaving anonymous gifts for him. 1. Leo becomes intrigued by the gifts and begins to search for the mysterious admirer. 1. Jack and Leo finally meet at a school art exhibition, where Leo realizes Jack’s connection to the gifts. 1. Their initial awkward encounter slowly blossoms into a genuine friendship as they bond over their shared love for art. 1. Jack and Leo’s friendship is tested when a scandal rocks their school, threatening to tear them apart. 1. Despite the challenges, Jack and Leo’s bond deepens as they confide in each other and support one another. 1. The Center, a secretive organization Jack is a part of, reveals their true intentions and orders Jack to complete a dangerous mission that puts Leo at risk. 1. Jack is torn between his loyalty to the Center and his love for Leo, struggling to find a way to protect both. 1. Leo’s life is put in grave danger when he uncovers a dark secret that implicates the Center in a series of crimes. 1. Jack makes the ultimate sacrifice to save Leo and expose the Center’s corrupt actions, putting his own life on the line for the person he loves. \methodname with DFS 1. Jack arrives in Maine and starts attending the same high school as Leo. 1. Jack is immediately drawn to Leo, but soon realizes that Leo is hiding a dark secret. 1. Instead of confronting Leo right away, Jack decides to secretly follow him and discovers that Leo is actually working undercover to bring down the dangerous organization. 1. Jack is conflicted between his growing feelings for Leo and the danger of being involved in Leo’s mission. 1. Jack offers to help Leo in his mission, leading to a deepening of their bond as they face increasing risks together. 1. Their forbidden romance blooms amidst the chaos, complicating their mission and putting them both in jeopardy. 1. The organization catches wind of Jack and Leo’s alliance, putting both of their lives at risk. 1. Jack and Leo must make difficult choices to protect each other and navigate the treacherous waters of their relationship. 1. The Center threatens to harm Leo’s family if they don’t stop their investigation. 1. Jack and Leo are forced to go underground and make a dangerous deal to protect their loved ones. 1. The stakes are raised when Leo’s father is kidnapped, pushing Jack and Leo to their limits in a race against time to save him. 1. Jack and Leo face off against the leaders of the organization in a thrilling final showdown, risking everything to bring them down and secure a future together. \methodname with MCTS: 1. Jack arrives in Maine and starts attending the same high school as Leo. 1. Jack notices a mysterious new student, Alex, who seems to be watching Leo closely. 1. Jack becomes curious about Alex’s intentions and starts investigating their background. 1. Jack discovers that Alex is actually a spy from a rival organization called the Center targeting Leo. 1. Jack confronts Alex and warns Leo about the danger, leading to a confrontation between the three. 1. Jack, Leo, and Alex form an unlikely alliance to uncover the truth behind the Center’s motives. 1. Jack and Leo’s bond is tested as they navigate the complexities of trust and betrayal within their group. 1. The rival organization escalates their actions, putting Jack, Leo, and Alex in grave danger. 1. Leo sacrifices himself to protect Jack and defeat the Center, shocking everyone. 1. The truth behind the Center’s motives is revealed, leading to a deeper understanding of the sacrifices made. 1. Jack and Alex must work together to honor Leo’s sacrifice and take down the Center. 1. In a shocking revelation, it is uncovered that Leo’s twin brother, who was thought to be dead, is actually the mastermind behind the Center, creating a complex dynamic between the characters. D.1.2 Example 2 Initial outline: 1. The Health Department wants to close the Boys Club due to infestation of rats and cockroaches. 1. Closing the Boys Club means the kids will be left without a place to go. 1. The kids are worried about being out on the street again. 1. Buddy suggests organizing a bake sale to raise funds. 1. Johnny proposes hosting a talent show as another fundraising idea. 1. Rich suggests reaching out to local businesses for donations or sponsorships. 1. Cool suggests organizing a community car wash to raise money. 1. Buddy Williams suggests asking the local pet store owner if he knows anything about the rich cat. 1. The kids visit the pet store and ask the owner about the rich cat. 1. The pet store owner tells the kids about a rumor he heard of a rich cat living in a mansion nearby. 1. The kids decide to investigate the mansion and see if they can find the rich cat. 1. The townspeople share their findings and clues with the kids, who compile the information and continue the search. 1. The kids and townspeople follow leads and investigate potential sightings of the rich cat. 1. The search intensifies as more people join in, creating a sense of community and determination to find the rich cat. 1. After an extensive search, the kids and townspeople finally locate the rich cat, who generously donates the money needed to save the Boys Club. Self Refine: 1. The Health Department wants to close the Boys Club due to infestation of rats and cockroaches. 1. Closing the Boys Club means the kids will be left without a place to go. 1. The kids are worried about being out on the street again. 1. Buddy suggests organizing a bake sale to raise funds. 1. Johnny proposes hosting a talent show as another fundraising idea. 1. Rich suggests reaching out to local businesses for donations or sponsorships. 1. Cool suggests organizing a community car wash to raise money. 1. Buddy Williams suggests asking the local pet store owner if he knows anything about the rich cat. 1. The kids visit the pet store and ask the owner about the rich cat. 1. The pet store owner tells the kids about a rumor he heard of a rich cat living in a mansion nearby. 1. The kids decide to investigate the mansion and see if they can find the rich cat. 1. While searching the mansion, the kids stumble upon a hidden room filled with mysterious artifacts and clues. 1. The artifacts lead them to a map that hints at a hidden treasure in the town. 1. The kids and townspeople embark on a thrilling treasure hunt, following the map’s clues and facing challenges along the way. 1. After overcoming obstacles and working together, the kids and townspeople unearth the hidden treasure, which turns out to be the rich cat’s fortune that saves the Boys Club. ToT: 1. The Health Department wants to close the Boys Club due to infestation of rats and cockroaches. 1. Closing the Boys Club means the kids will be left without a place to go. 1. The kids are worried about being out on the street again. 1. Buddy suggests organizing a bake sale to raise funds. 1. Johnny proposes hosting a talent show as another fundraising idea. 1. Rich suggests reaching out to local businesses for donations or sponsorships. 1. Cool suggests organizing a community car wash to raise money. 1. Buddy Williams suggests asking the local pet store owner if he knows anything about the rich cat. 1. The kids visit the pet store and ask the owner about the rich cat. 1. The pet store owner tells the kids about a rumor he heard of a rich cat living in a mansion nearby. 1. The kids decide to investigate the mansion and see if they can find the rich cat. 1. While investigating the mansion, the kids stumble upon a hidden room with a mysterious map that leads to a hidden treasure. 1. The townspeople share their findings and clues with the kids, who now have a new mission to find the hidden treasure. 1. The search for the hidden treasure leads the kids and townspeople to uncover secrets about the town’s history and a long-lost treasure that could save the Boys Club. 1. After a thrilling adventure and overcoming obstacles, the kids and townspeople finally find the hidden treasure, which not only saves the Boys Club but also brings the community closer together. \methodname with DFS 1. The Health Department discovers that the Boys Club is in danger of losing its funding due to budget cuts. 1. The kids are devastated as they learn that the Boys Club may have to shut down if they can’t come up with a solution. 1. Buddy suggests organizing a scavenger hunt around town to raise funds and awareness for the Boys Club. 1. Johnny proposes creating a social media campaign to rally support and donations for the Boys Club. 1. Rich suggests hosting a charity concert with local musicians and performers to raise money. 1. Cool suggests organizing a charity auction with items donated by local businesses and community members. 1. The kids brainstorm and come up with a plan to combine all the fundraising ideas into one big event to save the Boys Club. 1. Buddy Williams suggests asking the local historian if he knows of any hidden treasures or artifacts that could help raise funds. 1. The kids visit the local historian and learn about a legendary treasure rumored to be hidden somewhere in town. 1. The historian gives the kids a map and clues to help them on their quest to find the treasure. 1. The kids embark on an exciting adventure to follow the map and solve the clues to locate the hidden treasure. 1. Along the way, they face challenges and obstacles that test their friendship and determination. 1. The townspeople join in the treasure hunt, adding to the excitement and suspense of the search. 1. After overcoming obstacles and following the clues, the kids and townspeople finally discover the hidden treasure, which turns out to be the key to saving the Boys Club. 1. The treasure not only provides the funds needed to keep the Boys Club open but also brings the community together in a heartwarming and unforgettable way. \methodname with MCTS 1. The Health Department wants to close the Boys Club due to infestation of rats and cockroaches. 1. Closing the Boys Club means the kids will be left without a place to go. 1. The kids are worried about being out on the street again. 1. Buddy suggests organizing a scavenger hunt around town to raise funds. 1. Johnny proposes creating a community mural project as another fundraising idea. 1. Luna, a mysterious new girl in town, suggests hosting a talent show to raise money, revealing her own hidden talents in the process. 1. Rich suggests organizing a neighborhood cleanup event to raise money. 1. Cool suggests hosting a movie night in the park to raise funds. 1. Buddy Williams suggests asking the local historian if he knows anything about a hidden treasure in the town. 1. The kids visit the local historian and ask about the hidden treasure. 1. The historian tells the kids about a legend of a lost pirate treasure buried somewhere in the town. 1. Luna shares a personal connection to the treasure hunt, sparking curiosity and excitement among the group. 1. The kids face challenges and puzzles during their treasure hunt that test their problem-solving skills and teamwork. 1. In a surprising twist, the treasure turns out to be a time capsule filled with memories and mementos from the town’s past. 1. The kids realize that the true treasure was the journey itself and the bonds of friendship they formed along the way, teaching them the value of community and unity. Luna’s involvement adds depth to the story and enhances the theme of unity and friendship. D.2 Constrained Generation The examples below show the final outputs of different reasoning strategies in Constrained Generation. D.2.1 Example 1 Concepts: drum, clip, window, cover, graffiti, wave, vomit, hurdle, dye, sidewalk, animal, slice, swing, pottery, pineapple, fix, decorate, tire, tag, bicycle, watermelon, sign, mask, plant Refine Children decorated pottery with vibrant dye near the graffiti-covered wall, while a masked animal rode a bicycle past a sign, waving as they passed by a tire swing hanging from a tree and a clip holding a sign on the sidewalk, avoiding a hurdle, slicing a pineapple and a watermelon to plant in the garden. ToT A child on a swing by the sidewalk waved at a bicyclist with a tire fixed and decorated with graffiti. \methodname with DFS The children decorated the pottery with vibrant dye, while the adults fixed the tire on the bicycle near the sidewalk, as a group of friends played the drum and waved at passersby from the swing, with a clip holding a sign on the window, a slice of watermelon in hand, and a pineapple plant in the background. \methodname with MCTS A person walks down the sidewalk past a graffiti-covered window, a pottery clip lies on the ground, a bicycle rider swerves to avoid a tire, and a sign is being fixed and decorated with dye next to a pineapple stand, as a drum beats in the background, a wave crashes on the shore, an animal scurries across the path, a slice of watermelon is enjoyed under the shade of a swing, a mask-wearing individual tags a plant with a new growth, and a hurdle is cleared by a runner as they vomit from exhaustion. D.2.2 Example 2 Concepts: plant, word, remove, toddler, hamburger, potato, set, line, place, control, eat, banner, singe, hurdle, bed, bar, alley, stove, top, air, cowboy, sharpen, pair, beat, arena, wave, singer, jacket Refine The toddler removes the banner from the line and places it on the top of the bar to singe while the cowboy sharpens a pair of knives to beat the hurdle in the arena. ToT The toddler eats a hamburger and potato at the place where the plant is growing, while the singer on stage waves under the banner to the cheering crowd, and the cowboy sharpens his pair of beat-up boots backstage. \methodname with DFS The toddler eagerly eats a hamburger while the cowboy sharpens his pair of scissors at the plant nursery. \methodname with MCTS The toddler removes a plant from the line, places it in the bed, eats a hamburger with a side of potato, then sets the table for a cowboy sharpening his pair of knives at the top of the bar, while a singer controls the banner in the arena, singing as the wave of music beats through the alley where a jacketed cowboy hurdles over a singe stove. Appendix E G-Eval on Story Outline Generation We’ve run an additional evaluation using the G-Eval metric Liu et al. (2023). We provide a definition prompt of interestingness, and the result indicates that ThoughtSculpt(MCTS) outperforms other baselines when evaluated by either GPT-4 and GPT-3.5, consistent with other metrics. | | GPT-3.5 | GPT-4 | | --- | --- | --- | | Self-refine | 4.33 | 4.45 | | ToT | 4.37 | 4.66 | | ThoughtSculpt (DFS) | 4.47 | 4.71 | | ThoughtSculpt (MCTS) | 4.60 | 4.73 | Table 7: G-Eval Result (1-5 scale) Appendix F More search steps on Mini-Crosswords We’ve shown that \methodname (MCTS) could achieve a solid performance in only 20 search steps, but we have run an extended number of search steps to match the experiment setup provided by Yao et al. (2023a). | | GPT4 | | | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Methods | % word | % letter | % game | | ToT (20 search steps) | 39.5 | 64.8 | 5.0 | | ToT (100 search steps) Yao et al. (2023a) | 60 | 78 | 20 | | \methodname (MCTS) (20 search steps) | 54.0 | 74.0 | 25.0 | | \methodname (MCTS) (100 search steps) | 66.0 | 83.0 | 35.0 | Table 8: Mini-crossword results of 20 puzzles for \methodname and baselines (success % of letters, words, and games). Comparison between ToT and \methodname (MCTS) with 20 and 100 search steps Appendix G Constrained Generation LLM Evaluation To evaluate the preferred output based on concept coverage and appropriateness, we conduct an additional assessment using GPT-4. We prompt GPT-4 to select the output that is most preferred, considering both its coverage of relevant concepts and the appropriateness of how this coverage is utilized. Figure 6, which compares \methodname with MCTS against \methodname with DFS and a third baseline (which intuitively represents the case where neither version of \methodname produces a satisfactory output), shows that \methodname with MCTS is significantly favored. <details> <summary>x6.png Details</summary>  ### Visual Description ## Bar Chart: Percentage of Outputs Preferred by Method ### Overview The chart compares three methods ("Neither is good," "Ours (DFS)," and "Ours (MCTS)") based on the percentage of outputs preferred. The y-axis represents preference percentage (0–100%), while the x-axis lists the methods. The "Ours (MCTS)" method dominates, followed by "Ours (DFS)," with "Neither is good" having the lowest preference. ### Components/Axes - **X-axis (Method)**: - Categories: "Neither is good" (green), "Ours (DFS)" (orange), "Ours (MCTS)" (blue). - **Y-axis (% of outputs preferred)**: - Scale: 0–100% in 20% increments. - **Legend**: - Position: Bottom of the chart. - Colors: Green = "Neither is good," Orange = "Ours (DFS)," Blue = "Ours (MCTS)." ### Detailed Analysis - **Neither is good (Green)**: - Height: ~8% of outputs preferred. - Uncertainty: ±2% (estimated from bar height relative to y-axis grid). - **Ours (DFS) (Orange)**: - Height: ~32% of outputs preferred. - Uncertainty: ±2%. - **Ours (MCTS) (Blue)**: - Height: ~60% of outputs preferred. - Uncertainty: ±2%. ### Key Observations 1. **Dominance of MCTS**: "Ours (MCTS)" is preferred ~60% of the time, significantly outperforming other methods. 2. **DFS vs. Neither**: "Ours (DFS)" is preferred ~32% of the time, ~4x more than "Neither is good." 3. **Low Baseline**: "Neither is good" has the lowest preference, suggesting it is rarely chosen. ### Interpretation The data demonstrates a clear preference hierarchy: **MCTS > DFS > Neither**. The MCTS method is nearly twice as preferred as DFS, which itself is ~4x more preferred than the "Neither is good" baseline. This suggests MCTS is the most effective method in the evaluated context, while "Neither is good" serves as a weak control group. The stark contrast between MCTS and DFS implies MCTS may offer unique advantages (e.g., accuracy, efficiency) worth investigating further. The chart’s simplicity emphasizes actionable insights over complexity, prioritizing direct comparison of method performance. </details> (a) Base LLM GPT-3.5 <details> <summary>x7.png Details</summary>  ### Visual Description ## Bar Chart: Comparison of Output Preferences by Method ### Overview The chart compares the percentage of outputs preferred across three methods: "Neither is good," "Ours (DFS)," and "Ours (MCTS)." The y-axis represents the percentage of outputs preferred (0–100%), while the x-axis lists the methods. The data shows a stark preference for "Ours (MCTS)" over the other methods. ### Components/Axes - **X-axis (Method)**: - Labels: "Neither is good" (green), "Ours (DFS)" (orange), "Ours (MCTS)" (blue). - **Y-axis (% of outputs preferred)**: - Scale: 0 to 100% in increments of 20. - **Legend**: - Colors: Green (#32CD32), Orange (#FF4500), Blue (#1E90FF). - Positioned at the bottom of the chart, aligned with the x-axis labels. ### Detailed Analysis - **Neither is good (Green)**: - Height: ~15% of outputs preferred. - Color matches legend (green). - **Ours (DFS) (Orange)**: - Height: ~18% of outputs preferred. - Color matches legend (orange). - **Ours (MCTS) (Blue)**: - Height: ~65% of outputs preferred. - Color matches legend (blue). ### Key Observations 1. "Ours (MCTS)" is overwhelmingly preferred, with ~65% of outputs selected. 2. "Neither is good" is the least preferred method at ~15%. 3. "Ours (DFS)" has slightly higher preference (~18%) than "Neither is good" but remains far below "Ours (MCTS)." ### Interpretation The data suggests that "Ours (MCTS)" is significantly more effective or preferred compared to the other methods. The stark contrast between "Ours (MCTS)" and the other two methods implies that MCTS may offer superior performance or user satisfaction. The near-identical preference for "Neither is good" and "Ours (DFS)" could indicate that DFS is only marginally better than the baseline ("Neither is good"), or that both are underperforming relative to MCTS. This chart highlights the dominance of MCTS in the evaluated context, warranting further investigation into its advantages. </details> (b) Base LLM GPT-4 Figure 6: GPT-4’s comprehensive preference based on concept coverage and appropriateness over the final outputs for Constrained Generation. \methodname with MCTS is preferred by a wide margin. Appendix H Game of 24 We additionally experiment with our method on the game of 24 using the same test set provided by (Yao et al., 2023a). Compared to (Yao et al., 2023a) ’s prompts with detailed few-shot examples for this task, \methodname uses a much more general prompt. As illustrated in Table 9, \methodname still outperforms ToT in this comparison despite this setup that might be expected to favor ToT. | | Success % | | --- | --- | | CoT-SC (k=100) Yao et al. (2023a) | 9 | | IO - Refine (k=10) Yao et al. (2023a) | 27 | | ToT (b = 1) Yao et al. (2023a) | 45 | | ToT (b = 5) Yao et al. (2023a) | 74 | | ThoughtSculpt (MCTS) (b = 5) | 79 | Table 9: Game of 24 Result H.1 Game of 24 Task prompts {python} TASK_DESCRIPTION = """ Use the given four numbers and basic arithmetic operations (+ - * /) to obtain 24. You can use the numbers only once but you can use them in any order. """ SOLUTION_OUTPUT_FORMAT = """ # Think step by step first. Then, please output the solution in the following format (in a Python code block). “‘python (1 + 2) * (2 * 4) “‘ # Your response. """ REVISE_SOLUTIONS = """ # Instruction instruction # Current Solution solution Calculate the result of the current solution. Do you think the solution is correct? If not, please provide feedback. # Output format “‘json "calculation": "step by step calculation of the current solution", "result: int, "feedback": "Your feedback here", "correct" : true/false “‘ """ Appendix I Effectiveness of components Our framework has two core components that use LLM: the thought evaluator, providing both numeric and language feedback for revision, and the thought generator, which generates subsequent nodes based on this feedback to improve outputs. Both are essential, as removing either makes the method non-functional. We conducted an additional ablation study by "weakening" these modules. We replaced GPT-4 with Llama3.1-8B-Instruct as the language model for either the thought evaluator or the thought generator in the Constrained Generation task. The results are summarized below: | ThoughtSculpt | 99.0 | | --- | --- | | ThoughtSculpt (weakened generator) | 98.5 | | ThoughtSculpt (weakened evaluator) | 96.3 | | ThoughtSculpt (weakened generator + evaluator) | 90.7 | Table 10: Coverage of Different ThoughtSculpt’s Components These results highlight the critical role of a strong evaluator in deep reasoning tasks, as it provides essential revision feedback that significantly enhances the generator’s effectiveness.