Paper · arXiv 2309.03241
GPT Can Solve Mathematical Problems Without a Calculator
Zhen Yang, Ming Ding, Qingsong Lv, Zhihuan Jiang, Zehai He, Yuyi Guo, Jinfeng Bai, Jie Tang
A large language model with sufficient training data can accurately perform complex arithmetic operations without calculator tools, outperforming GPT-4.
Abstract
Previous studies have typically assumed that large language models are unable to accurately perform arithmetic operations, particularly multiplication of >8 digits, and operations involving decimals and fractions, without the use of calculator tools. This paper aims to challenge this misconception. With sufficient training data, a 2 billion-parameter language model can accurately perform multi-digit arithmetic operations with almost 100% accuracy without data leakage, significantly surpassing GPT-4 (whose multi-digit multiplication accuracy is only 4.3%). We also demonstrate that our MathGLM, fine-tuned from GLM-10B on a dataset with additional multi-step arithmetic operations and math problems described in text, achieves similar performance to GPT-4 on a 5,000-samples Chinese math problem test set.