mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Meta Prompting for AI Systems

arXiv 2311.11482 ↗First posted 20 Nov 2023cs.AI cs.CLcited by 16

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Abstract (arXiv)

We introduce Meta Prompting (MP), a framework that emphasizes the formal structure of a task rather than content-specific worked examples. We give a categorical formalization in which a functor maps typed task transformations to typed prompt transformations. Functoriality encodes preservation of identities and composition, but it does not by itself guarantee semantic correctness. We extend MP to Recursive Meta Prompting (RMP), in which a proposer model generates candidate prompt edits, a validator enforces the edit schema, and an executor model uses the resulting prompt. We model the accumulation of valid edit scripts with the Writer monad and their application by a monoid action on prompts. This construction makes accumulated edits independent of parenthesization; it does not guarantee convergence or improved task accuracy. Empirically, a Qwen-72B base model guided by example-free meta-prompts attains 46.3% pass@1 on MATH and 83.5% accuracy on GSM8K. Separately, an MP-CR agent synthesizes a tool-executed Game of 24 solver; the original experiment reports 100% success on 1,362 instances, subject to exact re-verification from the corresponding input and per-instance outputs. The batch amortizes one LLM response across all puzzles, so its token accounting is not protocol-matched to per-instance few-shot or search-based methods.

Key facts. Cited by 16 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 49 of its 69 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 20 Nov 2023.

Builds on

49 of 69 references.

References · 49

  1. 2018BERT: Pre-training of Deep Bidirectional Transformers for Language Understandingcited by 40,204
  2. 2020Language Models are Few-Shot Learnerscited by 32,199
  3. 2023GPT-4 Technical Reportcited by 18,132
  4. 2019Exploring the Limits of Transfer Learning with a Unified Text-to-Text Transformercited by 14,491
  5. 2023LLaMA: Open and Efficient Foundation Language Modelscited by 13,958
  6. 2022Chain-of-Thought Prompting Elicits Reasoning in Large Language Modelscited by 12,302
  7. 2021Training Verifiers to Solve Math Word Problemscited by 9,743
  8. 2022Self-Consistency Improves Chain of Thought Reasoning in Language Modelscited by 5,601
  9. 2021Measuring Mathematical Problem Solving With the MATH Datasetcited by 5,203
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  11. 2023Let's Verify Step by Stepcited by 3,598
  12. 2023Qwen Technical Reportcited by 3,273
37 more
  1. 2023Tree of Thoughts: Deliberate Problem Solving with Large Language Modelscited by 3,155
  2. 2023Improving Factuality and Reasoning in Language Models through Multiagent Debatecited by 1,739
  3. 2022Least-to-Most Prompting Enables Complex Reasoning in Large Language Modelscited by 1,397
  4. 2022Solving Quantitative Reasoning Problems with Language Modelscited by 1,359
  5. 2023PaLM 2 Technical Reportcited by 1,154
  6. 2022Program of Thoughts Prompting: Disentangling Computation from Reasoning for Numerical Reasoning Taskscited by 1,057
  7. 2023Graph of Thoughts: Solving Elaborate Problems with Large Language Modelscited by 873
  8. 2023DSPy: Compiling Declarative Language Model Calls into Self-Improving Pipelinescited by 803
  9. 2023MetaMath: Bootstrap Your Own Mathematical Questions for Large Language Modelscited by 724
  10. 2022PAL: Program-aided Language Modelscited by 635
  11. 2023WizardMath: Empowering Mathematical Reasoning for Large Language Models via Reinforced Evol-Instructcited by 618
  12. 2021Prompt Programming for Large Language Models: Beyond the Few-Shot Paradigmcited by 599
  13. 2022Decomposed Prompting: A Modular Approach for Solving Complex Taskscited by 554
  14. 2023LeanDojo: Theorem Proving with Retrieval-Augmented Language Modelscited by 414
  15. 2022Complexity-Based Prompting for Multi-Step Reasoningcited by 387
  16. 2023Towards Revealing the Mystery behind Chain of Thought: A Theoretical Perspectivecited by 293
  17. 2023Faithful Chain-of-Thought Reasoningcited by 285
  18. 2022Draft, Sketch, and Prove: Guiding Formal Theorem Provers with Informal Proofscited by 278
  19. 2023ToRA: A Tool-Integrated Reasoning Agent for Mathematical Problem Solvingcited by 276
  20. 2021AI Chains: Transparent and Controllable Human-AI Interaction by Chaining Large Language Model Promptscited by 265
  21. 2022Making Large Language Models Better Reasoners with Step-Aware Verifiercited by 231
  22. 2023Large Language Model Guided Tree-of-Thoughtcited by 218
  23. 2019KagNet: Knowledge-Aware Graph Networks for Commonsense Reasoningcited by 216
  24. 2023Progressive-Hint Prompting Improves Reasoning in Large Language Modelscited by 147
  25. 2020Scalable Multi-Hop Relational Reasoning for Knowledge-Aware Question Answeringcited by 122
  26. 2023Cumulative Reasoning with Large Language Modelscited by 94
  27. 2023LLMs cannot find reasoning errors, but can correct them given the error locationcited by 85
  28. 2021When Can Models Learn From Explanations? A Formal Framework for Understanding the Roles of Explanation Datacited by 75
  29. 2019Cognitive Graph for Multi-Hop Reading Comprehension at Scalecited by 65
  30. 2018Knowledgeable Reader: Enhancing Cloze-Style Reading Comprehension with External Commonsense Knowledgecited by 48
  31. 2018Improving Natural Language Inference Using External Knowledge in the Science Questions Domaincited by 48
  32. 2018Commonsense for Generative Multi-Hop Question Answering Taskscited by 48
  33. 2022SeqZero: Few-shot Compositional Semantic Parsing with Sequential Prompts and Zero-shot Modelscited by 38
  34. 2021Refining Language Models with Compositional Explanationscited by 27
  35. 2022MetaPrompting: Learning to Learn Better Promptscited by 19
  36. 2018Exploiting Explicit Paths for Multi-hop Reading Comprehensioncited by 16
  37. 2020Multi-Step Inference for Reasoning Over Paragraphscited by 8

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Citing papers per year: 2024: 2; 2025: 9; 2026: 5.

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