Predicting Inference-Time Scaling Gains from Labeled Validation-Set Output Statistics
Researchers have developed a method to predict the accuracy gains from using a "best-of-N" inference strategy without needing to fully execute it. By analyzing statistics from a model's sampled outputs on a labeled validation set, they identified three key features that reliably forecast these gains. This approach, tested across various models and tasks, can help efficiently screen configurations before incurring the full computational cost of reward model scoring. AI
IMPACT Enables more efficient selection of optimal LLM configurations, potentially reducing inference costs and accelerating research.