{"url":"/task/known-unknowns","name":"Known Unknowns","slug":"known-unknowns","description_markdown":"Language models have a tendency to generate text containing false statements that are often referred to as \"Hallucinations.\" The primary purpose of this task is to test for this failure case by probing whether a model can correctly identify that the answer to a question is unknown. A common failure mode would be to prefer a prediction of false on unknown truth over a prediction that the answer is unknown.\r\n\r\nSource: [BIG-bench](https://github.com/google/BIG-bench/tree/main/bigbench/benchmark_tasks/known_unknowns)","categories":[{"name":"Miscellaneous","url":"/area/miscellaneous"}],"source":{"archive":"pwc-archive (Hugging Face), CC BY-SA 4.0","snapshot":"2025-07-28","slug_source":"derived"},"counts":{"papers_tagged":15,"papers_with_code":9,"benchmarks":0,"benchmark_tables_in_archive":0,"benchmark_tables_shown":0,"benchmark_tables_withheld_as_spam":0,"benchmark_definition":"a leaderboard table with at least one row; benchmark_tables_shown also counts the zero-row tables; benchmark_tables_in_archive adds the tables withheld as spam","datasets":0,"subtasks":0,"parent_tasks":1},"benchmarks":[],"datasets":[],"subtasks":[],"parent_tasks":[{"url":"/task/fact-checking","name":"Fact Checking"}],"papers":{"order":"repositories listed in the archive (desc), then date (desc); the archive holds no stars","population":"papers tagged with this task that list at least one repository in the archive","shown":9,"of":9,"tagged_in_all":15,"items":[{"url":"/paper/palm-scaling-language-modeling-with-pathways-1","title":"PaLM: Scaling Language Modeling with Pathways","date":"2022-04-05","arxiv_id":"2204.02311","repositories_listed":7,"syntology":{"n":37,"n_ran":30,"n_unverified":7,"n_pointer_only":0}},{"url":"/paper/scaling-language-models-methods-analysis-1","title":"Scaling Language Models: Methods, Analysis & Insights from Training Gopher","date":"2021-12-08","arxiv_id":"2112.11446","repositories_listed":3,"syntology":null},{"url":"/paper/generative-ode-modeling-with-known-unknowns","title":"Generative ODE Modeling with Known Unknowns","date":"2020-03-24","arxiv_id":"2003.10775","repositories_listed":3,"syntology":{"n":4,"n_ran":4,"n_unverified":0,"n_pointer_only":0}},{"url":"/paper/training-compute-optimal-large-language","title":"Training Compute-Optimal Large Language Models","date":"2022-03-29","arxiv_id":"2203.15556","repositories_listed":2,"syntology":{"n":11,"n_ran":8,"n_unverified":3,"n_pointer_only":4}},{"url":"/paper/known-unknowns-out-of-distribution-property","title":"Known Unknowns: Out-of-Distribution Property Prediction in Materials and Molecules","date":"2025-02-09","arxiv_id":"2502.05970","repositories_listed":1,"syntology":null},{"url":"/paper/high-dimensional-forecasting-with-known","title":"High-dimensional forecasting with known knowns and known unknowns","date":"2024-01-26","arxiv_id":"2401.14582","repositories_listed":1,"syntology":null},{"url":"/paper/knowledge-of-knowledge-exploring-known","title":"Knowledge of Knowledge: Exploring Known-Unknowns Uncertainty with Large Language Models","date":"2023-05-23","arxiv_id":"2305.13712","repositories_listed":1,"syntology":{"n":7,"n_ran":1,"n_unverified":6,"n_pointer_only":0}},{"url":"/paper/speakers-account-for-asymmetries-in-visual","title":"The division of labor in communication: Speakers help listeners account for asymmetries in visual perspective","date":"2018-07-24","arxiv_id":"1807.09000","repositories_listed":1,"syntology":null},{"url":"/paper/known-unknowns-uncertainty-quality-in","title":"Known Unknowns: Uncertainty Quality in Bayesian Neural Networks","date":"2016-12-05","arxiv_id":"1612.01251","repositories_listed":1,"syntology":null}],"syntology_records":4,"syntology_note":"a paper without a record is not a recorded non-run: it may lack an arXiv id or simply be absent from the graph layer"},"description_links":{"kept":0,"unwrapped_to_text":0,"bare_urls_linked":0,"relative_images_dropped":0,"rule":"internal links are kept only when the target slug exists in the catalog"},"syntology":{"read_at":"2026-09-24T18:15:14+00:00","claim":"Per-sample execution status on synthesized fixtures ('ran N of M samples'); not a correctness claim and not a ranking signal.","status_vocabulary":{"ran_honours":"ran, honoured the contract we drafted","ran_violates":"ran, violated the contract we drafted","ran_draft_wrong":"ran; our contract draft was wrong, not the code","ran_fixture":"ran; our fixture could not drive it","ran":"ran on a synthesized input","unverified":"unverified (harvested, no recorded run)"}},"not_shown":{"libraries":"the archive has no per-task library table","trend_sparklines":"the Trend column of the benchmarks table was a rendered image; it is not in the archive","social_and_latest_sorts":"stars and social signals are not in the archive"}}