TRiMS: Real-Time Tracking of Minimal Sufficient Length for Efficient Reasoning via RL

Large language models achieve breakthroughs in complex reasoning via long chain-of-thought sequences. However, this often leads to severe reasoning inflation, causing substantial computational redundancy. To maximize Intelligence per Token, we introduce a theoretical metric, MSL-Minimal Sufficient Length. MSL rigorously characterizes the shortest reasoning length that preserves answer correctness. We provide a recursive definition based on independently sampled sequences and prove the existence of its limit, establishing the first measurable lower bound for reasoning-chain compression. Building on an analysis of mainstream CoT compression strategies, we identify key structural factors enabling a model to approach MSL. Based on these insights, we propose TRiMS which employs the GRPO algorithm in conjunction with MSL-based estimation during training, while mitigating instabilities during the training process through dynamic batch aggregation and advantage computation using batch-level standard deviation. TRiMS achieves over 80% CoT token reduction with a minor accuracy boost across all benchmarks.

GlobalRAG: Enhancing Global Reasoning in Multi-hop Question Answering via Reinforcement Learning

Reinforcement learning has recently shown promise in improving retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). Despite these advances, its effectiveness in multi-hop question answering (QA) remains limited by two fundamental limitations: (i) global planning absence to structure multi-step reasoning, and (ii) unfaithful execution, which hinders effective query formulation and consistent use of retrieved evidence. We propose GlobalRAG, a reinforcement learning framework designed to enhance global reasoning in multi-hop QA. GlobalRAG decomposes questions into subgoals, coordinates retrieval with reasoning, and refines evidence iteratively. To guide this process, we introduce Planning Quality Reward and SubGoal Completion Reward, which encourage coherent planning and reliable subgoal execution. In addition, a progressive weight annealing strategy balances process-oriented and outcome-based objectives. Extensive experiments on both in-domain and out-of-domain benchmarks demonstrate that GlobalRAG significantly outperforms strong baselines while using only 8k training data (42% of the training data used by strong baselines), achieving average improvements of 14.2% in both EM and F1.

Auditing and Mitigating Cultural Bias in LLMs

Culture fundamentally shapes people's reasoning, behavior, and communication. Generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies may cause a shift towards a dominant culture. As people increasingly use AI to expedite and even automate various professional and personal tasks, cultural values embedded in AI models may bias authentic expression. We audit large language models for cultural bias, comparing their responses to nationally representative survey data, and evaluate country-specific prompting as a mitigation strategy. We find that GPT-4, 3.5 and 3 exhibit cultural values resembling English-speaking and Protestant European countries. Our mitigation strategy reduces cultural bias in recent models but not for all countries/territories. To avoid cultural bias in generative AI, especially in high-stakes contexts, we suggest using culture matching and ongoing cultural audits.