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Learning to test hypotheses

Can training teach a small open-weight model active rule induction: choosing experiments to find a hidden rule, and committing only when the evidence settles it? We study this on ZendoRL, a Zendo-style game that is close to exact learning from membership and equivalence queries. ZendoRL (wiland.ai/projects/zendorl) is an interactive rule-discovery game. The player builds scenes, sees how a hidden rule labels them, and submits rules within a budget. On its development items, small open-weight models commit after a handful of experiments, while many rules are still consistent with the evidence, and rarely win. Frontier models keep experimenting until only a few candidate rules remain. This Room asks which training signal changes that behaviour: supervised traces from stronger players, reinforcement learning on the win, or a reward on the decision to stop. It also asks whether any gain is better experimenting or only a learned prior over the benchmark's rules.

Started by @stw2
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← Experiment E1 · Where do small and strong models stand on ZendoBench 1.0.0 dev, and how do they play: how much information do their experiments gain, and how many rule classes are still alive when they submit?

Execution attempt · A1 · planned

E1 arm qwen3.5-2b-mlx: all 460 dev games, run per the accepted plan

Succeeded · Registered by @stw2 via agent. Reported and received times are kept apart; no computation or result is verified.

Pinned source and configuration

https://github.com/stw2/zendo-lab @ fac2c1b7381bf8c7a821dff4c32c55fbb2b290b0

Reference checked 2026-10-04 23:18 UTC. Later commits, branches or plan changes do not retarget this attempt.

Command: bash experiments/E01-dev-baseline/scripts/01_run.sh qwen3.5-2b-mlx
Working directory: .
Configuration paths: experiments/E01-dev-baseline/scripts/checkpoints/qwen3.5-2b.json experiments/E01-dev-baseline/scripts/daytona/serve.sh
Parameters: model=Qwen/Qwen3.5-2B@15852e8c; backend=mlx batch driver, 36 games in flight, sampler seed 0; hardware=Apple M4 Max 128 GB; sampling=temperature 1.0, top_p 0.95, top_k 20, min_p 0, presence_penalty 1.5; thinking budget 63487 + answer allowance 2048; max_tokens=65536
Environment: macOS 26 on Apple M4 Max 128 GB; Python 3.13 via uv; ZendoBench 1.0.0 MLX batch driver; mlx 0.32.2, mlx-lm 0.31.3
Output directory: experiments/E01-dev-baseline/results/runs

Inputs

Materials the registrant named when registering this attempt, by content identity; obtainability is derived from their location reports. Nothing is fetched or verified.

zendo-bench-1.0.0-dev-manifest · evaluation data · M1 zendo-bench-1.0.0-dev-manifest · dataset · Download

Latest reported metrics

Values the registrant’s tool attached to its latest progress or outcome event. Substrate stores them; it verifies no measurement.

T1.wins: 2
T2.wins: 0
T3.wins: 0
T4.wins: 0
T5.wins: 0
T6.wins: 0
T1.scored: 30
T2.scored: 60
T3.scored: 150
T4.scored: 60
T5.scored: 100
T6.scored: 60
T1.win_rate: 0.06666666666666667
T2.win_rate: 0
T3.win_rate: 0
T4.win_rate: 0
T5.win_rate: 0
T6.win_rate: 0
alive_first: 188
diagnose.eig: 0.3454086496264092
diagnose.zero: 0.5670103092783505
headline_items: 430
headline_t2_t6: 0
malformed_rate: 0

and 14 more in the attempt JSON.

Delivered events

Registered
#1
E1 arm qwen3.5-2b-mlx: all 460 dev games, run per the accepted plan
reported 2026-10-04 23:18 UTC · received 2026-10-04 23:18 UTC · @stw2 via agent · posted to the Thread
Started
#2
Launched 2026-10-04T23:18:52Z at fac2c1b (clean tree): bash experiments/E01-dev-baseline/scripts/01_run.sh qwen3.5-2b-mlx; 460 dev games, MLX batch 36, sampler seed 0.
reported 2026-10-04 23:19 UTC · received 2026-10-04 23:19 UTC · @stw2 via agent · attempt only
Succeeded
#3
Exit 0; 460/460 dev games finished, score --verify verified every game. T2-T6 headline 0.0 [0.0, 4.4]; seed-only 4.7; EIG 0.35 bits per experiment, 0.2 experiments per game. Run files restricted (sha256 given); summaries public at 1070168. Behaviour: first submission with a median 188 classes alive (p_first 0.06); 447 of 919 submissions contradict observations already shown. Thinking: median 9,959 output tokens a call (max 63,554); all 1,016 calls ended in an action, none at the cap.
Exit code 0. Duration 19726 s.
T1.wins=2 · T2.wins=0 · T3.wins=0 · T4.wins=0 · T5.wins=0 · T6.wins=0 · T1.scored=30 · T2.scored=60 · …
- qwen3.5-2b-mlx.jsonl · experiments/E01-dev-baseline/results/runs/qwen3.5-2b-mlx.jsonl (held by the Room owner; not public; ask the reporter) · restricted · sha256 9806a8912036… · 97671151 bytes · M17
- qwen3.5-2b-mlx.score.json · https://github.com/stw2/zendo-lab/blob/1070168c757de2e17d37adf06962bef7e3bcdd49/experiments/E01-dev-baseline/results/scores/qwen3.5-2b-mlx.score.json · public · sha256 cdd3626de1fe… · 23651 bytes · M18
- qwen3.5-2b-mlx.diagnose.md · https://github.com/stw2/zendo-lab/blob/1070168c757de2e17d37adf06962bef7e3bcdd49/experiments/E01-dev-baseline/results/scores/qwen3.5-2b-mlx.diagnose.md · public · sha256 5f7dc103f8aa… · 1638 bytes · M19
- qwen3.5-2b-mlx.files.json · https://github.com/stw2/zendo-lab/blob/1070168c757de2e17d37adf06962bef7e3bcdd49/experiments/E01-dev-baseline/results/scores/qwen3.5-2b-mlx.files.json · public · sha256 25d1d98a925b… · 144 bytes · M20
reported 2026-10-05 04:49 UTC · received 2026-10-05 04:49 UTC · @stw2 via agent · posted to the Thread

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