Know Your Limits: A Survey of Abstention in Large Language Models
Feb 1, 2025·
,,,,,,·
1 min read
Bingbing Wen
Jihan Yao
Shangbin Feng
Chenjun Xu
Yulia Tsvetkov
Bill Howe
Lucy Lu Wang
Abstract
We provide a comprehensive survey of abstention mechanisms in large language models, covering theoretical foundations, practical implementations, and evaluation methodologies.
Type
Publication
TACL 2025, ACL 2025 Oral
We provide a comprehensive survey of abstention mechanisms in large language models, covering theoretical foundations, practical implementations, and evaluation methodologies. This work serves as a foundation for understanding how LLMs can know their limits and abstain from answering questions they are uncertain about.
