XYBench: Can LLMs Respond Pragmatically to Queries with Misconceptions?
When non-expert users ask LLMs for assistance, their queries can often have misconceptions (e.g., "How do I parse XML with regex?"). In such cases, often referred to as the XY-problem, LLMs must identify the misconception ("regex are fragile") and meaningfully direct the user toward a pragmatic solution that will address the root problem implicit in the request ("use an XML parser"). We introduce XYBench, a benchmark of 8,115 such queries, drawn from technical (StackOverflow/StackExchange) and everyday (WikiHow and a manually-curated subset) domains. We design an evaluation paradigm that assesses model responses along three criteria grounded in cooperative response theory: (a) presence an...
| Authors | Akhila Yerukola, Jena D. Hwang, Mingqian Zheng et al. |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.CL |
| Published | 6 September 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 6 September 2026 |
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