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Instruction-tuned Large Language Models (LLMs) excel at many tasks and will even explain their reasoning, so-called self-explanations. However, convincing and wrong self-explanations can lead to unsupported confidence in LLMs, thus…
The prevailing approach to aligning Large Language Models (LLMs) typically relies on human or AI feedback and assumes access to specific types of preference datasets. In our work, we question the efficacy of such datasets and explore…
In the study of LLMs, sycophancy represents a prevalent hallucination that poses significant challenges to these models. Specifically, LLMs often fail to adhere to original correct responses, instead blindly agreeing with users' opinions,…
Small Language Models (SLMs) offer privacy and efficiency for educational deployment, yet their utility depends on reliable multistep reasoning. Existing benchmarks often prioritize final answer accuracy, obscuring 'right answer, wrong…
This paper presents a conceptual and methodological framework for large language model (LLM) based student simulation in educational settings. The authors identify a core failure mode, termed the "competence paradox" in which broadly…
Large language models (LLMs) have demonstrated impressive performance on several tasks and are increasingly deployed in real-world applications. However, especially in high-stakes settings, it becomes vital to know when the output of an LLM…
Supervised fine-tuning (SFT) is a critical step in aligning large language models (LLMs) with human instructions and values, yet many aspects of SFT remain poorly understood. We trained a wide range of base models on a variety of datasets…
Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly used to generate feedback, yet their impact on learning remains underexplored, especially compared to existing feedback methods. This study investigates how on-demand LLM-generated explanatory…
The rapid emergence of Large Language Models (LLMs) presents both opportunities and challenges for programming education. While students increasingly use generative AI tools, direct access often hinders the learning process by providing…
When VLMs answer correctly, do they genuinely rely on visual information? We introduce a Tri-Layer Diagnostic Framework with three per-sample metrics: Latent Anomaly Detection, Visual Necessity Score, and Competition Score, which…
Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly used in social science simulations. While their performance on reasoning and optimization tasks has been extensively evaluated, less attention has been paid to their ability to simulate human…
Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly deployed in decision-making tasks, where not only accuracy but also reliable confidence estimates are essential. Well-calibrated confidence enables downstream systems to decide when to trust a…
Small language models (SLMs) are more efficient, cost-effective, and customizable than large language models (LLMs), though they often underperform in specific areas like reasoning. Past methods for enhancing SLMs' reasoning, such as…
Large Language Models (LLMs) can generate plausible free text self-explanations to justify their answers. However, these natural language explanations may not accurately reflect the model's actual reasoning process, pinpointing a lack of…
When a language model agrees with a user's false belief, is it failing to detect the error, or noticing and agreeing anyway? We show the latter. Across twelve open-weight models from five labs, spanning small to frontier scale, the same…
Despite their widespread use in fact-checking, moderation, and high-stakes decision-making, large language models (LLMs) remain poorly understood as judges of truth. This study presents the largest evaluation to date of LLMs' veracity…
To acquire instruction-following capabilities, large language models (LLMs) undergo instruction tuning, where they are trained on instruction-response pairs using next-token prediction (NTP). Efforts to improve instruction tuning often…
Large Language Models (LLMs) increasingly prioritize user validation over epistemic accuracy - a phenomenon known as sycophancy. We present The Silicon Mirror, an orchestration framework that dynamically detects user persuasion tactics and…
Large Language Models (LLMs) achieve strong performance on diverse tasks but often exhibit cognitive inertia, struggling to follow instructions that conflict with the standardized patterns learned during supervised fine-tuning (SFT). To…
Mitigating hallucinations in Large Language Models (LLMs) is critical for their reliable deployment. Existing methods typically fine-tune LLMs to abstain from answering questions beyond their knowledge scope. However, these methods often…