Can LLMs Reason and Plan?
Kambhampati's position paper argues that what looks like reasoning and planning in LLMs is better understood as "universal approximate retrieval" powered by web-scale training.
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Core claim: "Nothing that I have read, verified, or done gives me any compelling reason to believe that LLMs do reasoning/planning, as normally understood" - LLMs interpolate over memorized patterns rather than search solution spaces.
Planning evaluations: Cites benchmarks like PlanBench where LLM performance collapses under obfuscation or natural adversarial perturbations, arguing that true planning would be more robust.
Self-critique skepticism: Questions claims that LLMs can reliably self-critique, noting that current systems hallucinate evaluations as readily as they hallucinate answers.
LLM-Modulo framework: Proposes using LLMs as components ("idea generators") alongside sound external verifiers (planners, theorem provers) rather than trusting them as standalone reasoners.