The OPRO Framework: Using Large Language Models as Optimizers

:::info Authors:

(1) Chengrun Yang, Google DeepMind and Equal contribution;

(2) Xuezhi Wang, Google DeepMind;

(3) Yifeng Lu, Google DeepMind;

(4) Hanxiao Liu, Google DeepMind;

(5) Quoc V. Le, Google DeepMind;

(6) Denny Zhou, Google DeepMind;

(7) Xinyun Chen, Google DeepMind and Equal contribution.

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Table of Links

Abstract and 1. Introduction

2 Opro: Llm as the Optimizer and 2.1 Desirables of Optimization by Llms

2.2 Meta-Prompt Design

3 Motivating Example: Mathematical Optimization and 3.1 Linear Regression

3.2 Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP)

4 Application: Prompt Optimization and 4.1 Problem Setup

4.2 Meta-Prompt Design

5 Prompt Optimization Experiments and 5.1 Evaluation Setup

5.2 Main Results

5.3 Ablation Studies

5.4 Overfitting Analysis in Prompt Optimization and 5.5 Comparison with Evoprompt

6 Related Work

7 Conclusion, Acknowledgments and References

A Some Failure Cases

B Prompting Formats for Scorer Llm

C Meta-Prompts and C.1 Meta-Prompt for Math Optimization

C.2 Meta-Prompt for Prompt Optimization

D Prompt Optimization Curves on the Remaining Bbh Tasks

E Prompt Optimization on Bbh Tasks – Tabulated Accuracies and Found Instructions

2 OPRO: LLM AS THE OPTIMIZER

Figure 2 illustrates the overall framework of OPRO. In each optimization step, the LLM generates candidate solutions to the optimization task based on the optimization problem description and previously evaluated solutions in the meta-prompt. Then the new solutions are evaluated and added to the meta-prompt for the subsequent optimization process. The optimization process terminates when the LLM is unable to propose new solutions with better optimization scores, or a maximum number of optimization steps has reached. We first outline the desired features of LLMs for optimization, then describe the key design choices based on these desirables.

2.1 DESIRABLES OF OPTIMIZATION BY LLMS

Making use of natural language descriptions. The main advantage of LLMs for optimization is their ability of understanding natural language, which allows people to describe their optimization tasks without formal specifications. For instance, in prompt optimization where the goal is to find a prompt that optimizes the task accuracy, the task can be described with a high-level text summary along with input-output examples.

\ Trading off exploration and exploitation. The exploration-exploitation trade-off is a fundamental challenge in optimization, and it is important for LLMs serving as optimizers to balance these two competing goals. This means that the LLM should be able to exploit promising areas of the search space where good solutions are already found, while also exploring new regions of the search space so as to not miss potentially better solutions.

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:::info This paper is available on arxiv under CC0 1.0 DEED license.

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