通过强化学习教语言模型解决数独

In the world of AI and language models, we often hear about systems that can write essays, generate code, or answer complex questions. But what about teaching them to solve puzzles that require structured thinking, spatial reasoning, and logical deduction? This is where my recent experiment comes in—teaching language models to solve Sudoku puzzles through reinforcement learning.

在人工智能和语言模型的世界中，我们经常听到可以写论文、生成代码或回答复杂问题的系统。但教它们解决需要结构化思维、空间推理和逻辑推理的谜题呢？这就是我最近实验的意义——通过强化学习教语言模型解决数独谜题。

Sudoku presents a fascinating challenge for language models. Unlike open-ended text generation, solving a Sudoku puzzle requires:

数独为语言模型提供了一个迷人的挑战。与开放式文本生成不同，解决数独难题需要：

Following strict rules (each row, column, and box must contain numbers 1-9 without repetition)
遵循严格的规则（每行、每列和每个框必须包含1-9的数字且不重复）
Maintaining a consistent grid format
保持一致的网格格式
Applying step-by-step logical reasoning
逐步应用逻辑推理
Understanding spatial relationships between grid elements
理解网格元素之间的空间关系
Arriving at a single correct solution
得出单一正确解决方案

What makes this particularly interesting is that language models aren’t designed for structured problem-solving. They’re trained to predict text, not to follow logical rules or maintain grid structures. Yet with the right approach, they can learn these skills.

这特别有趣的是，语言模型并不是为结构化问题解决而设计的。它们是为了预测文本而训练的，而不是遵循逻辑规则或维持网格结构。然而，通过正确的方法，它们可以学习这些技能。

For this experiment, I leveraged a dataset of 4 million Sudoku puzzles from Kaggle, ranging from very easy to challenging difficulties. The dataset preparation involved several key steps:

在这个实验中，我利用了来自Kaggle的400万个数独谜题的数据集，难度从非常简单到具有挑战性。数据集的准备涉及几个关键步骤：

Loading and filtering: I used the kagglehub library to download the dataset and filtered puzzles based on difficulty levels.
加载和过滤： 我使用了 kagglehub 库来下载数据集，并根据难度级别过滤谜题。
Difficulty classification: Puzzles were categorized into four difficulty levels based on the number of clues:
- Level 1 (Very Easy): 50-81 clues
- Level 2 (Easy): 40-49 clues
- Level 3 (Medium): 30-39 clues
- Level 4 (Hard): 17-29 clues
难度分类：根据线索数量将谜题分为四个难度级别：
- 级别 1 (非常简单)：50-81 个线索
- 级别 2 (简单)...