What is Chain-of-Thought Reasoning?
Definition
Chain-of-thought (CoT) reasoning is a prompting technique where AI models are encouraged to show their intermediate reasoning steps before giving a final answer. By making the model "think out loud," it can tackle more complex logical, mathematical, and multi-step problems more accurately than simple direct answering.
Example
Question: If a train travels 60 mph for 2 hours, then 40 mph for 1 hour, what's the average speed?
Chain-of-Thought Response:
Step 1: Calculate distance at 60 mph: 60 Γ 2 = 120 miles
Step 2: Calculate distance at 40 mph: 40 Γ 1 = 40 miles
Step 3: Total distance: 120 + 40 = 160 miles
Step 4: Total time: 2 + 1 = 3 hours
Step 5: Average speed: 160 Γ· 3 = 53.33 mph
Final Answer: 53.33 mph
Related Techniques
- Zero-shot CoT: "Let's think step by step" prompt
- Few-shot CoT: Show examples of reasoning chains
- Tree of Thoughts: Explore multiple reasoning paths
- Self-Consistency: Sample multiple chains, pick most common answer