Predicting Language Models’ Success at Zero-Shot Probabilistic Prediction

ACL ARR 2025 May Submission4987 Authors

Abstract: Recent work has investigated the capabilities of large language models (LLMs) as zero-shot models for generating individual-level characteristics (e.g., to serve as risk models or augment survey datasets). However, when should a user have confidence that an LLM will provide high-quality predictions for their particular task? To address this question, we conduct a large-scale empirical study of LLMs' zero-shot predictive capabilities across a wide range of tabular prediction tasks. We find that LLMs' performance is highly variable, both on tasks within the same dataset and across different datasets. However, when the LLM performs well on the base prediction task, its predicted probabilities become a stronger signal for individual-level accuracy. Then, we construct metrics to predict LLMs' performance at the task level, aiming to distinguish between tasks where LLMs may perform well and where they are likely unsuitable. We find that some of these metrics, each of which are assessed without labeled data, yield strong signals of LLMs' predictive performance on new tasks.

Paper Type: Long

Research Area: Interpretability and Analysis of Models for NLP

Research Area Keywords: calibration/uncertainty, robustness

Contribution Types: Model analysis & interpretability, Data resources, Data analysis

Languages Studied: English

Submission Number: 4987