# PAL (Program-Aided Language Models) import { Callout, FileTree } from 'nextra-theme-docs' import {Screenshot} from 'components/screenshot' import PAL from '../../img/pal.png' [Gao et al., (2022)](https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.10435) presents a method that uses LLMs to read natural language problems and generate programs as the intermediate reasoning steps. Coined, program-aided language models (PAL), it differs from chain-of-thought prompting in that instead of using free-form text to obtain solution it offloads the solution step to a programmatic runtime such as a Python interpreter. Image Source: [Gao et al., (2022)](https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.10435) Let's look at an example using LangChain and OpenAI GPT-3. We are interested to develop a simple application that's able to interpret the question being asked and provide an answer by leveraging the Python interpreter. Specifically, we are interested to create a functionality that allows the use of the LLM to answer questions that require date understanding. We will provide the LLM a prompt that includes a few exemplars which are adopted from [here](https://github.com/reasoning-machines/pal/blob/main/pal/prompt/date_understanding_prompt.py). These are the imports we need: ```python import openai from datetime import datetime from dateutil.relativedelta import relativedelta import os from langchain.llms import OpenAI from dotenv import load_dotenv ``` Let's first configure a few things: ```python load_dotenv() # API configuration openai.api_key = os.getenv("OPENAI_API_KEY") # for LangChain os.environ["OPENAI_API_KEY"] = os.getenv("OPENAI_API_KEY") ``` Setup model instance: ```python llm = OpenAI(model_name='text-davinci-003', temperature=0) ``` Setup prompt + question: ```python question = "Today is 27 February 2023. I was born exactly 25 years ago. What is the date I was born in MM/DD/YYYY?" DATE_UNDERSTANDING_PROMPT = """ # Q: 2015 is coming in 36 hours. What is the date one week from today in MM/DD/YYYY? # If 2015 is coming in 36 hours, then today is 36 hours before. today = datetime(2015, 1, 1) - relativedelta(hours=36) # One week from today, one_week_from_today = today + relativedelta(weeks=1) # The answer formatted with %m/%d/%Y is one_week_from_today.strftime('%m/%d/%Y') # Q: The first day of 2019 is a Tuesday, and today is the first Monday of 2019. What is the date today in MM/DD/YYYY? # If the first day of 2019 is a Tuesday, and today is the first Monday of 2019, then today is 6 days later. today = datetime(2019, 1, 1) + relativedelta(days=6) # The answer formatted with %m/%d/%Y is today.strftime('%m/%d/%Y') # Q: The concert was scheduled to be on 06/01/1943, but was delayed by one day to today. What is the date 10 days ago in MM/DD/YYYY? # If the concert was scheduled to be on 06/01/1943, but was delayed by one day to today, then today is one day later. today = datetime(1943, 6, 1) + relativedelta(days=1) # 10 days ago, ten_days_ago = today - relativedelta(days=10) # The answer formatted with %m/%d/%Y is ten_days_ago.strftime('%m/%d/%Y') # Q: It is 4/19/1969 today. What is the date 24 hours later in MM/DD/YYYY? # It is 4/19/1969 today. today = datetime(1969, 4, 19) # 24 hours later, later = today + relativedelta(hours=24) # The answer formatted with %m/%d/%Y is today.strftime('%m/%d/%Y') # Q: Jane thought today is 3/11/2002, but today is in fact Mar 12, which is 1 day later. What is the date 24 hours later in MM/DD/YYYY? # If Jane thought today is 3/11/2002, but today is in fact Mar 12, then today is 3/12/2002. today = datetime(2002, 3, 12) # 24 hours later, later = today + relativedelta(hours=24) # The answer formatted with %m/%d/%Y is later.strftime('%m/%d/%Y') # Q: Jane was born on the last day of Feburary in 2001. Today is her 16-year-old birthday. What is the date yesterday in MM/DD/YYYY? # If Jane was born on the last day of Feburary in 2001 and today is her 16-year-old birthday, then today is 16 years later. today = datetime(2001, 2, 28) + relativedelta(years=16) # Yesterday, yesterday = today - relativedelta(days=1) # The answer formatted with %m/%d/%Y is yesterday.strftime('%m/%d/%Y') # Q: {question} """.strip() + '\n' ``` ```python llm_out = llm(DATE_UNDERSTANDING_PROMPT.format(question=question)) print(llm_out) ``` This will output the following: ``` # If today is 27 February 2023 and I was born exactly 25 years ago, then I was born 25 years before. today = datetime(2023, 2, 27) # I was born 25 years before, born = today - relativedelta(years=25) # The answer formatted with %m/%d/%Y is born.strftime('%m/%d/%Y') ``` The contents of `llm_out` are a Python code snippet. Below, the `exec` command is used to execute this Python code snippet. ```python exec(llm_out) print(born) ``` This will output the following: `02/27/1998`