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Pushing the Limits of Mathematical Reasoning in Open Language Models (arxiv.org)
2 points by josh-sematic on Feb 6, 2024 | hide | past | pdf | 1 comment on HN

In plain words: A 7-billion-parameter model was further trained on 120 billion math tokens from the web, then tuned by rewarding its own correct answers using less memory than usual. It solved 51.7% of competition-level math problems without tools or voting over several answers, near GPT-4.

Abstract · DeepSeekMath: Pushing the Limits of Mathematical Reasoning in Open Language Models

Mathematical reasoning poses a significant challenge for language models due to its complex and structured nature. In this paper, we introduce DeepSeekMath 7B, which continues pre-training DeepSeek-Coder-Base-v1.5 7B with 120B math-related tokens sourced from Common Crawl, together with natural language and code data. DeepSeekMath 7B has achieved an impressive score of 51.7% on the competition-level MATH benchmark without relying on external toolkits and voting techniques, approaching the performance level of Gemini-Ultra and GPT-4. Self-consistency over 64 samples from DeepSeekMath 7B achieves 60.9% on MATH. The mathematical reasoning capability of DeepSeekMath is attributed to two key factors: First, we harness the significant potential of publicly available web data through a meticulously engineered data selection pipeline. Second, we introduce Group Relative Policy Optimization (GRPO), a variant of Proximal Policy Optimization (PPO), that enhances mathematical reasoning abilities while concurrently optimizing the memory usage of PPO.

Zhihong Shao, Peiyi Wang, Qihao Zhu, Runxin Xu, Junxiao Song, Xiao Bi, Haowei Zhang, Mingchuan Zhang, Y. K. Li, Y. Wu, Daya Guo
arXiv:2402.03300 · cs.CL, cs.AI, cs.LG · submitted Feb 5, 2024 · updated Apr 27, 2024
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Traditional AI approaches to games involves reinforcement learning (RL). This type of learning is also used post-LLM as reinforcement learning with human feedback (RLHF) to improve the LLM.

At the moment my effort involves a focus on mathematical proofs using this technology.

RL requires a few things. It requires a notion of 'states'. It requires 'actions' that can be applied within states. It requires a success/fail measure, either when moving from state to state or only at the end of an effort.

Now consider mathematical proofs.

The LEAN project[0] has developed an IDE[1] that guides proofs, It guides the user "from state to state" keeping track of the current state.

There is a database of axioms and theorems[2]. Each of these are strongly typed so they can only be applied in specific states.

There are "tactics" which are actions from state to state.

Success can be found when the proof is successful. Intermediate success can be measured by recording what tactics / axioms / theorems were applied.

The use of strong types means that there are only a few actions that apply in each state. Traditional arguments about exponential growth limiting brute force no longer apply.

SO ... we now have all of the elements of a game. Which means that we can apply reinforcement learning to LEAN proofs. I suspect that "proving theorems" will be one of the next areas overtaken by AI.

[0] http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~avigad/Papers/lean_system...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lean_(proof_assistant)

[2] https://www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/avigad/Talks/mathematical_co...