AI 模拟人类?它连扔骰子都学不像
我们总想让 AI 代替人类做模拟——比如预测市场、模拟人群行为。但这篇论文发现:连最简单的概率分布,AI 都学不像。研究者设计了 448 道题,让模型从已知分布(如正态分布、随机程序、自然语言描述)中采样,然后用统计检验看它采出的样本和真实分布有多像。结果:最强模型在采样 100 个点时的通过率不到 20%,没有模型能超过 40%。更糟的是,让模型“多思考”只能小幅提升,无法根本解决。这不是你明天能用上的工具,但它提醒你:当 AI 被用来模拟复杂系统时,它可能只是假装懂了随机性。
📄 原文摘要(英文)
We introduce UnpredictaBench, an evaluation that tests the ability of large language models (LLMs) to capture true underlying distributions. As LLMs are increasingly used as substitutes for other entities (e.g., for humans in economic simulations), the tendency of many models to collapse towards a single plausible answer means a failure to capture the unpredictability of real systems. Recent work on improving output diversity is insufficient for this setting: simulation requires samples that are calibrated to a target distribution, not merely varied outputs. UnpredictaBench isolates a simplified but fundamental version of this problem: sampling outcomes from individual target distributions, including canonical statistical distributions, distributions induced by stochastic programs, and natural-language scenarios that describe random processes. We introduce 448 such problems together with KS@N, a general-purpose evaluation metric that quantifies how well a model outputs approximate black-box target distributions via the Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistical test. This is the rate at which we fail to reject model samples of size N against ground-truth samples, with larger N indicating greater difficulty. Tested across open and proprietary models, we find a large spread in distributional capabilities. For instance, when models generate samples of size 100 (KS@100, our standard metric), scores range from near 0 to over 20%. No model is able to achieve over 40% at KS@100, showing significant headroom in distributional sampling as a capability. Although adding reasoning can somewhat increase scores, we find no immediate solution for this issue. UnpredictaBench shows that even simple distributional simulation remains challenging, making it a necessary first step toward using LLMs as stand-ins for complex systems.