Deciphering Trajectory-Aided LLM Reasoning: An Optimization Perspective

Junnan Liu, Hongwei Liu, Linchen Xiao, Shudong Liu, Taolin Zhang, Zihan Ma, Songyang Zhang, Kai Chen

Deciphering Trajectory-Aided LLM Reasoning: An Optimization Perspective: 36 upvotes on Hugging Face Daily Papers, #9 of 71 papers on 2025-05-27. Day-by-day upvote history.

We propose a novel framework for comprehending the reasoning capabilities of large language models (LLMs) through the perspective of meta-learning. By conceptualizing reasoning trajectories as pseudo-gradient descent updates to the LLM's parameters, we identify parallels between LLM reasoning and various meta-learning paradigms. We formalize the training process for reasoning tasks as a meta-learning setup, with each question treated as an individual task, and reasoning trajectories serving as the inner loop optimization for adapting model parameters. Once trained on a diverse set of questions, the LLM develops fundamental reasoning capabilities that can generalize to previously unseen questions. Extensive empirical evaluations substantiate the strong connection between LLM reasoning and meta-learning, exploring several issues of significant interest from a meta-learning standpoint. Our work not only enhances the understanding of LLM reasoning but also provides practical insights for improving these models through established meta-learning techniques.

Paper page on Hugging Face · arXiv

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