Linhao Zhong Zhejiang University, Linyu Wu National University of Singapore, Wen Wang Zhejiang University, Yuling Xi, Chenchen Jing, Jiaheng Zhang National University of Singapore, Hao Chen Zhejiang University, Chunhua Shen Zhejiang University
Diffusion large language models (dLLMs) have recently attracted significant attention for their ability to enhance diversity, controllability, and parallelism. However, their non-sequential, bidirectionally masked generation makes quality assessment difficult, underscoring the need for effective self-evaluation. In this work, we propose DiSE, a simple yet effective self-evaluation confidence quantification method for dLLMs. DiSE quantifies confidence by computing the probability of regenerating the tokens in the entire generated sequence, given the full context. This method enables more efficient and reliable quality assessment by leveraging token regeneration probabilities, facilitating both likelihood estimation and robust uncertainty quantification. Building upon DiSE, we further introduce a flexible-length generation framework, which adaptively controls the sequence length based on the model’s self-assessment of its own output. We analyze and validate the feasibility of DiSE from the perspective of dLLM generalization, and empirically demonstrate that DiSE is positively correlated with both semantic coherence and answer accuracy. Extensive experiments on likelihood evaluation, uncertainty quantification, and flexible-length generation further confirm the effectiveness of the proposed DiSE.
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cs.CL
Proceedings of the 64th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers) · 2026 · 正式发表
Linhao Zhong Zhejiang University, Linyu Wu National University of Singapore, Bozhen Fang, Tianjian Feng, Chenchen Jing, Wen Wang Zhejiang University, Jiaheng Zhang National University of Singapore, Hao Chen Zhejiang University 等 9 位作者
Diffusion Language Models (DLMs) offer a promising alternative for language modeling by enabling parallel decoding through iterative refinement. However, most DLMs rely on hard binary masking and discrete token assignments, which hinder the revision of early decisions and underutilize intermediate probabilistic representations. In this paper, we propose EvoToken-DLM, a novel diffusion-based language modeling approach that replaces hard binary masks with evolving soft token distributions. EvoToken-DLM enables a progressive transition from masked states to discrete outputs, supporting revisable decoding. To effectively support this evolution, we introduce continuous trajectory supervision, which aligns training objectives with iterative probabilistic updates. Extensive experiments across multiple benchmarks show that EvoToken-DLM consistently achieves superior performance, outperforming strong diffusion-based and masked DLM baselines. Our code is available at https://github.com/aim-uofa/EvoTokenDLM.
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cs.CL
Proceedings of the 64th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers) · 2026 · 正式发表
Jingwei Ni ETHZ - ETH Zurich, Ekaterina Fadeeva ETHZ - ETH Zurich, Tianyi Wu, Mubashara Akhtar ETHZ - ETH Zurich, Jiaheng Zhang National University of Singapore, Elliott Ash Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Markus Leippold University of Zurich, Timothy Baldwin Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence and The University of Melbourne 等 11 位作者
LLMs can solve complex tasks by generating long, multi-step reasoning chains. Test-time scaling (TTS) can further improve LLM performance by sampling multiple variants of intermediate reasoning steps, verifying their correctness, and strategically choosing the best steps for continuation. However, existing verification approaches, such as Process Reward Models (PRMs), are computationally expensive, limited to specific domains, and require large-scale human or model-generated annotations. We propose a lightweight alternative for step-level reasoning verification based on probing the internal states of LLMs. We train a transformer-based probe that uses the internal states of the frozen LLM to estimate the credibility of its reasoning steps during generation. Annotation can be generated either by another larger LLM (e.g., DeepSeek-R1) or in a self-supervised manner by the original model itself. The probes are both effective and lightweight, containing fewer than 10M parameters. Across multiple domains, including mathematics, planning, and general knowledge question answering, our probes match or even exceed the performance of PRMs that are up to 810× larger. Our findings suggest that the internal states of LLMs encode their confidence in reasoning processes and can serve as reliable signals for reasoning step verification, offering a promising direction towards scalable and generalizable TTS and introspective LLMs.
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cs.CL
Proceedings of the 64th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers) · 2026 · 正式发表
Jiaqi Liu, Shi Qiu, Mairui Li, Bingzhou Li, Haonian Ji, Siwei Han, Xinyu Ye, Peng Xia 等 36 位作者
Automating scientific discovery requires more than generating papers from ideas. Real research is iterative: hypotheses are challenged from multiple perspectives, experiments fail and inform the next attempt, and lessons accumulate across cycles. Existing autonomous research systems often model this process as a linear pipeline: they rely on single-agent reasoning, stop when execution fails, and do not carry experience across runs. We present AutoResearchClaw, a multi-agent autonomous research pipeline built on five mechanisms: structured multi-agent debate for hypothesis generation and result analysis, a self-healing executor with a \textsc{Pivot}/\textsc{Refine} decision loop that transforms failures into information, verifiable result reporting that prevents fabricated numbers and hallucinated citations, human-in-the-loop collaboration with seven intervention modes spanning full autonomy to step-by-step oversight, and cross-run evolution that converts past mistakes into future safeguards. On ARC-Bench, a 25-topic experiment-stage benchmark, AutoResearchClaw outperforms AI Scientist v2 by 54.7%. A human-in-the-loop ablation across seven intervention modes reveals that precise, targeted collaboration at high-leverage decision points consistently outperforms both full autonomy and exhaustive step-by-step oversight. We position AutoResearchClaw as a research amplifier that augments rather than replaces human scientific judgment. Code is available at https://github.com/aiming-lab/AutoResearchClaw.