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Related papers: Formalize, Don't Optimize: The Heuristic Trap in L…

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Large language models (LLMs) employ safety mechanisms to prevent harmful outputs, yet these defenses primarily rely on semantic pattern matching. We show that encoding harmful prompts as coherent mathematical problems -- using formalisms…

Cryptography and Security · Computer Science 2026-05-06 Haoyu Zhang , Mohammad Zandsalimy , Shanu Sushmita

Large Language Models (LLMs), despite their remarkable capabilities, rely on singular, pre-dominant reasoning paradigms, hindering their performance on intricate problems that demand diverse cognitive strategies. To address this, we…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2025-09-29 Zishan Ahmad , Saisubramaniam Gopalakrishnan

Large language models (LLMs) often struggle with complex logical reasoning due to logical inconsistencies and the inherent difficulty of such reasoning. We use Lean, a theorem proving framework, to address these challenges. By formalizing…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2024-03-21 Dongwei Jiang , Marcio Fonseca , Shay B. Cohen

State-of-the-art large language models (LLMs) exhibit impressive problem-solving capabilities but may struggle with complex reasoning and factual correctness. Existing methods harness the strengths of chain-of-thought and…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2024-10-03 Xingxuan Li , Weiwen Xu , Ruochen Zhao , Fangkai Jiao , Shafiq Joty , Lidong Bing

Neural networks offer good approximation to many tasks but consistently fail to reach perfect generalization, even when theoretical work shows that such perfect solutions can be expressed by certain architectures. Using the task of formal…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2024-06-07 Nur Lan , Emmanuel Chemla , Roni Katzir

Large Language Models (LLMs) are increasingly described as possessing strong reasoning capabilities, supported by high performance on mathematical, logical, and planning benchmarks. However, most existing evaluations rely on aggregate…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2026-04-16 Md. Fahad Ullah Utsho , Mohd. Ruhul Ameen , Akif Islam , Md. Golam Rashed , Dipankar Das

Combinatorial optimization problems often rely on heuristic algorithms to generate efficient solutions. However, the manual design of heuristics is resource-intensive and constrained by the designer's expertise. Recent advances in…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-03-06 Thomas Bömer , Nico Koltermann , Max Disselnmeyer , Laura Dörr , Anne Meyer

Heuristics have achieved great success in solving combinatorial optimization problems~(COPs). However, heuristics designed by humans require too much domain knowledge and testing time. Since Large Language Models~(LLMs) possess strong…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-06-23 Hui Wang , Xufeng Zhang , Chaoxu Mu

Constraint Programming (CP) is a powerful paradigm for solving combinatorial problems, yet translating natural language problem descriptions into executable models remains a significant bottleneck. While Large Language Models (LLMs) show…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2026-05-05 Yuliang Song , Eldan Cohen

The ability of Large Language Models (LLMs) to perform reasoning tasks such as deduction has been widely investigated in recent years. Yet, their capacity to generate proofs-faithful, human-readable explanations of why conclusions…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2026-01-21 Hui Yang , Jiaoyan Chen , Uli Sattler

Many traditional algorithms for solving combinatorial optimization problems involve using hand-crafted heuristics that sequentially construct a solution. Such heuristics are designed by domain experts and may often be suboptimal due to the…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-12-25 Nina Mazyavkina , Sergey Sviridov , Sergei Ivanov , Evgeny Burnaev

LLMs approach logical and mathematical reasoning through natural or symbolic languages. While natural language offers human-accessible flexibility but suffers from ambiguity, symbolic reasoning provides precise, machine-executable…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2025-02-27 Simeng Han , Tianyu Liu , Chuhan Li , Xuyuan Xiong , Arman Cohan

Despite their widespread adoption in various domains, especially due to their powerful reasoning capabilities, Large Language Models (LLMs) are not the off-the-shelf choice to drive multi-objective optimization yet. Conventional strategies…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-01-21 Andrej Schwanke , Lyubomir Ivanov , David Salinas , Frank Hutter , Arber Zela

We study the potential of using large language models (LLMs) as an interactive optimizer for solving maximization problems in a text space using natural language and numerical feedback. Inspired by the classical optimization literature, we…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2024-06-21 Allen Nie , Ching-An Cheng , Andrey Kolobov , Adith Swaminathan

Optimization problems are prevalent across various scenarios. Formulating and then solving optimization problems described by natural language often requires highly specialized human expertise, which could block the widespread application…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2025-03-04 Caigao Jiang , Xiang Shu , Hong Qian , Xingyu Lu , Jun Zhou , Aimin Zhou , Yang Yu

Optimization problems are pervasive across various sectors, from manufacturing and distribution to healthcare. However, most such problems are still solved heuristically by hand rather than optimally by state-of-the-art solvers, as the…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2023-11-01 Ali AhmadiTeshnizi , Wenzhi Gao , Madeleine Udell

Automatic software system optimization can improve software speed, reduce operating costs, and save energy. Traditional approaches to optimization rely on manual tuning and compiler heuristics, limiting their ability to generalize across…

Large Language Models (LLMs) exhibit impressive reasoning abilities, yet their reliance on structured step-by-step processing reveals a critical limitation. In contrast, human cognition fluidly adapts between intuitive, heuristic (System 1)…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2025-10-16 Alireza S. Ziabari , Nona Ghazizadeh , Zhivar Sourati , Farzan Karimi-Malekabadi , Payam Piray , Morteza Dehghani

Complex logical reasoning tasks require a long sequence of reasoning, which a large language model (LLM) with chain-of-thought prompting still falls short. To alleviate this issue, neurosymbolic approaches incorporate a symbolic solver.…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2025-07-22 Hyun Ryu , Gyeongman Kim , Hyemin S. Lee , Eunho Yang

Constraint programming (CP) is a crucial technology for solving real-world constraint optimization problems (COPs), with the advantages of rich modeling semantics and high solving efficiency. Using large language models (LLMs) to generate…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2026-01-13 Weichun Shi , Minghao Liu , Wanting Zhang , Langchen Shi , Fuqi Jia , Feifei Ma , Jian Zhang