This paper presents DataSciBench, a comprehensive benchmark for evaluating Large Language Models (LLMs) in data science. Unlike existing benchmarks limited to single task, simple evaluation metrics, and readily available ground truth (GT), DataSciBench is built on curated, natural, and challenging prompts with complex evaluation criteria and uncertain GT. To bridge the gap, we develop a semi-automated GT generation pipeline, integrating LLM-based self-consistency and human verification to ensure accuracy, predefined task types, and aggregate functions (metrics). Furthermore, we introduce an innovative Intention-Function-Code (IFC) framework, assessing code execution outcomes through metrics and programmatic rules. Evaluating 26 models (8 API-based, 8 open-source general, 9 code generation, and 1 agentic models), our approach offers rigorous insights into LLM strengths and weaknesses. Experimental results show API-based models outperform open-source counterparts across all metrics, with DeepAnalyze-8B leading among open-sourced models. We release all code and data at https://github.com/THUDM/DataSciBench.

In-Context Reinforcement Learning (ICRL) is a frontier paradigm to solve Reinforcement Learning (RL) problems in the foundation-model era. While ICRL capabilities have been demonstrated in transformers through task-specific training, the potential of large language models (LLMs) out of the box remains largely unexplored. This paper investigates whether LLMs can generalize cross-domain to perform ICRL on the Dueling Bandits (DB) problem, a stateless preference-based RL setting. We find that top-performing LLMs exhibit a notable zero-shot capacity for relative decision-making, which translates to low short-term weak regret across all DB environments by quickly including the best arm in duels. However, an optimality gap still exists between LLMs and classic DB algorithms in terms of strong regret. LLMs struggle to converge and consistently exploit even when explicitly prompted to do so, and they are sensitive to prompt variations. To bridge this gap, we propose an agentic-flow framework—LLM with Enhanced Algorithmic Dueling (LEAD)—which integrates off-the-shelf DB algorithm support with LLM agents through fine-grained adaptive interplay. We show that LEAD inherits theoretical guarantees from classic DB algorithms on both weak and strong regret. We validate its efficacy and robustness even with noisy and adversarial prompts. The design of such an agentic framework sheds light on how to enhance the trustworthiness of general-purpose LLMs generalized to in-context decision-making tasks.

There is increasing interest in equipping language models with the ability to leverage external tools for complex, goal-oriented tasks. However, interacting with external tools introduces inherent uncertainties due to imperfections and misalignments between the tools’ outputs and the agents’ internal models, often leading to suboptimal outcomes. We thus study the problem of tool-use calibration in language agents, and identify prompt design and execution trace selection as two primary areas that suffer from miscalibration. We then propose ProbeCal, which recalibrates the internal probabilities of tool-using language agents to better reflect the actual effectiveness of tool, and enables a more appropriate selection of prompts and execution paths. We empirically show that ProbeCal can significantly and consistently improve off-the-shelf language models in tool-using applications.