Priced Guidance: quantifying whether LLMs can generate novel research ideas via compression
ChengleiSi · x · 2026-10-07
A new paper proposes Priced Guidance, a compression-based method to quantify whether LLMs can generate novel research ideas.
Instead of sampling ideas until one matches a future paper's idea X, the LLM plays a "20 Questions" game to recover X, with each hint charged by its surprisal. This yields a lower bound on P(LLM forecasts idea X), offering a measurable framework for assessing LLM originality in research ideation.
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