# ML Research Benchmark

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.22553 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.22553/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 19 of its 32 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 29 Oct 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 19 of 19)

- [LoRA: Low-Rank Adaptation of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.09685/) (2021)
- [Llama 2: Open Foundation and Fine-Tuned Chat Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.09288/) (2023)
- [ReAct: Synergizing Reasoning and Acting in Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.03629/) (2022)
- [Evaluating Large Language Models Trained on Code](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.03374/) (2021)
- [SWE-bench: Can Language Models Resolve Real-World GitHub Issues?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.06770/) (2023)
- [WebArena: A Realistic Web Environment for Building Autonomous Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.13854/) (2023)
- [Pythia: A Suite for Analyzing Large Language Models Across Training and Scaling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.01373/) (2023)
- [WebShop: Towards Scalable Real-World Web Interaction with Grounded Language Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.01206/) (2022)
- [Mind2Web: Towards a Generalist Agent for the Web](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.06070/) (2023)
- [HuggingGPT: Solving AI Tasks with ChatGPT and its Friends in Hugging Face](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.17580/) (2023)
- [The AI Scientist: Towards Fully Automated Open-Ended Scientific Discovery](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.06292/) (2024)
- [Large Language Monkeys: Scaling Inference Compute with Repeated Sampling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.21787/) (2024)
- [API-Bank: A Comprehensive Benchmark for Tool-Augmented LLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.08244/) (2023)
- [MLAgentBench: Evaluating Language Agents on Machine Learning Experimentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.03302/) (2023)
- [Auto-GPT for Online Decision Making: Benchmarks and Additional Opinions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.02224/) (2023)
- [Evaluating Language-Model Agents on Realistic Autonomous Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.11671/) (2023)
- [AutoML-GPT: Automatic Machine Learning with GPT](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.02499/) (2023)
- [The MiniPile Challenge for Data-Efficient Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.08442/) (2023)
- [MLCopilot: Unleashing the Power of Large Language Models in Solving Machine Learning Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.14979/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [Large Language Model Agent: A Survey on Methodology, Applications and Challenges](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.21460/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Artificial intelligence agents are increasingly capable of performing complex tasks across various domains. As these agents advance, there is a growing need to accurately measure and benchmark their capabilities, particularly in accelerating AI research and development. Current benchmarks focus on general machine learning tasks, but lack comprehensive evaluation methods for assessing AI agents' abilities in tackling research-level problems and competition-level challenges in the field of AI. We present the ML Research Benchmark (MLRB), comprising 7 competition-level tasks derived from recent machine learning conference tracks. These tasks span activities typically undertaken by AI researchers, including model training efficiency, pretraining on limited data, domain specific fine-tuning, and model compression. This paper introduces a novel benchmark and evaluates it using agent scaffolds powered by frontier models, including Claude-3 and GPT-4o. The results indicate that the Claude-3.5 Sonnet agent performs best across our benchmark, excelling in planning and developing machine learning models. However, both tested agents struggled to perform non-trivial research iterations. We observed significant performance variations across tasks, highlighting the complexity of AI development and the challenges in creating versatile agent scaffolds. While current AI agents can successfully navigate complex instructions and produce baseline results, they fall short of the capabilities required for advanced AI research. The ML Research Benchmark provides a valuable framework for assessing and comparing AI agents on tasks mirroring real-world AI research challenges.