Revisiting the Non-Determinism of Code Generation by the GPT-3.5 Large Language Model
Despite recent advancements in Large Language Models (LLMs) for code generation, their inherent non-determinism remains a significant obstacle for reliable and reproducible software engineering research. Prior work has highlighted the high degree of variability in LLM-generated code, even when prompted with identical inputs. This non-deterministic behavior can undermine the validity of scientific conclusions drawn from LLM-based experiments. In contrast to prior research, this paper showcases the Tree of Thoughts (ToT) prompting strategy as a promising alternative for improving the predictability and quality of code generation results. By guiding the LLM through a structured Thoughts process, ToT aims to reduce the randomness inherent in the generation process and improve the consistency of the output. Our experimental results on GPT-3.5 Turbo model using 829 code generation problems from benchmarks such as CodeContests, APPS (Automated Programming Progress Standard) and HumanEval demonstrate a substantial reduction in non-determinism compared to previous findings. Specifically, we observed a significant decrease in the number of coding tasks that produced inconsistent outputs across multiple requests. Nevertheless, we show that the reduction in semantic variability was less pronounced for HumanEval (69%), indicating unique challenges present in this dataset that are not fully mitigated by ToT.
Wed 5 MarDisplayed time zone: Eastern Time (US & Canada) change
11:00 - 12:30 | Empirical Studies & LLMIndustrial Track / Research Papers / Reproducibility Studies and Negative Results (RENE) Track at L-1710 Chair(s): Diego Elias Costa Concordia University, Canada | ||
11:00 15mTalk | Beyond pip install: Evaluating LLM agents for the automated installation of Python projects Research Papers Louis Mark Milliken KAIST, Sungmin Kang National University of Singapore, Shin Yoo Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology Pre-print | ||
11:18 12mTalk | On the Compression of Language Models for Code: An Empirical Study on CodeBERT Research Papers Giordano d'Aloisio University of L'Aquila, Luca Traini University of L'Aquila, Federica Sarro University College London, Antinisca Di Marco University of L'Aquila Pre-print | ||
11:30 15mTalk | Can Large Language Models Discover Metamorphic Relations? A Large-Scale Empirical Study Research Papers Jiaming Zhang University of Science and Technology Beijing, Chang-ai Sun University of Science and Technology Beijing, Huai Liu Swinburne University of Technology, Sijin Dong University of Science and Technology Beijing | ||
11:45 15mTalk | Revisiting the Non-Determinism of Code Generation by the GPT-3.5 Large Language Model Reproducibility Studies and Negative Results (RENE) Track Salimata Sawadogo Centre d'Excellence Interdisciplinaire en Intelligence Artificielle pour le Développement (CITADEL), Aminata Sabané Université Joseph KI-ZERBO, Centre d'Excellence CITADELLE, Rodrique Kafando Centre d'Excellence Interdisciplinaire en Intelligence Artificielle pour le Développement (CITADEL), Tegawendé F. Bissyandé University of Luxembourg | ||
12:00 15mTalk | Language Models to Support Multi-Label Classification of Industrial Data Industrial Track Waleed Abdeen Blekinge Institute of Technology, Michael Unterkalmsteiner , Krzysztof Wnuk Blekinge Institute of Technology , Alessio Ferrari CNR-ISTI, Panagiota Chatzipetrou |