Self Distillation via Iterative Constructive Perturbations

Deep Neural Networks have achieved remarkable achievements across various domains, however balancing performance and generalization still remains a challenge while training these networks. In this paper, we propose a novel framework that uses a cyclic optimization strategy to concurrently optimize the model and its input data for better training, rethinking the traditional training paradigm. Central to our approach is Iterative Constructive Perturbation (ICP), which leverages the model's loss to iteratively perturb the input, progressively constructing an enhanced representation over some refinement steps. This ICP input is then fed back into the model to produce improved intermediate features, which serve as a target in a self-distillation framework against the original features. By alternately altering the model's parameters to the data and the data to the model, our method effectively addresses the gap between fitting and generalization, leading to enhanced performance. Extensive experiments demonstrate that our approach not only mitigates common performance bottlenecks in neural networks but also demonstrates significant improvements across training variations.

GPT-4's assessment of its performance in a USMLE-based case study

This study investigates GPT-4's assessment of its performance in healthcare applications. A simple prompting technique was used to prompt the LLM with questions taken from the United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE) questionnaire and it was tasked to evaluate its confidence score before posing the question and after asking the question. The questionnaire was categorized into two groups-questions with feedback (WF) and questions with no feedback(NF) post-question. The model was asked to provide absolute and relative confidence scores before and after each question. The experimental findings were analyzed using statistical tools to study the variability of confidence in WF and NF groups. Additionally, a sequential analysis was conducted to observe the performance variation for the WF and NF groups. Results indicate that feedback influences relative confidence but doesn't consistently increase or decrease it. Understanding the performance of LLM is paramount in exploring its utility in sensitive areas like healthcare. This study contributes to the ongoing discourse on the reliability of AI, particularly of LLMs like GPT-4, within healthcare, offering insights into how feedback mechanisms might be optimized to enhance AI-assisted medical education and decision support.

The Confidence-Competence Gap in Large Language Models: A Cognitive Study

Large Language Models (LLMs) have acquired ubiquitous attention for their performances across diverse domains. Our study here searches through LLMs' cognitive abilities and confidence dynamics. We dive deep into understanding the alignment between their self-assessed confidence and actual performance. We exploit these models with diverse sets of questionnaires and real-world scenarios and extract how LLMs exhibit confidence in their responses. Our findings reveal intriguing instances where models demonstrate high confidence even when they answer incorrectly. This is reminiscent of the Dunning-Kruger effect observed in human psychology. In contrast, there are cases where models exhibit low confidence with correct answers revealing potential underestimation biases. Our results underscore the need for a deeper understanding of their cognitive processes. By examining the nuances of LLMs' self-assessment mechanism, this investigation provides noteworthy revelations that serve to advance the functionalities and broaden the potential applications of these formidable language models.