# Diffusion of Thoughts: Chain-of-Thought Reasoning in Diffusion Language Models

Authors: Jiacheng Ye, Shansan Gong, Liheng Chen, Lin Zheng, Jiahui Gao, Han Shi, Chuan Wu, Xin Jiang, Zhenguo Li, Wei Bi, Lingpeng Kong.

Refines intermediate reasoning representations over several rounds of denoising. A multi-pass version can revisit earlier parts of the reasoning as it refines the solution.

First public: 2024-02-12.
ArXiv initial submission: 2024-02-12.

[Original paper](https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.07754) · [Reading-list entry](https://latent-implicit-thinking.github.io/papers/2402.07754/)
[Preprint BibTeX](https://latent-implicit-thinking.github.io/papers/2402.07754/citation.bib) · [Preprint CSL-JSON](https://latent-implicit-thinking.github.io/papers/2402.07754/citation.csl.json) · [JSON record](https://latent-implicit-thinking.github.io/papers/2402.07754/record.json)

## Method comparisons

**Changing generation order or removing written steps**

Diffusion of Thought changes how a chain of thought is generated: it refines the solution through denoising rather than committing to words strictly from left to right. This changes the generation schedule, not necessarily the visibility of the reasoning. The resulting chain can still be text, unlike methods that only emit the final answer.

Sources: [Diffusion of Thought](https://proceedings.neurips.cc/paper_files/paper/2024/hash/be30024e7fa2c29cac7a6dafcbb8571f-Abstract-Conference.html) · [Deng et al. (2024), §3](https://arxiv.org/html/2405.14838v1#S3)

Paper details: [Diffusion of Thoughts: Chain-of-Thought Reasoning in Diffusion Language Models](https://latent-implicit-thinking.github.io/papers/2402.07754/) · [From Explicit CoT to Implicit CoT: Learning to Internalize CoT Step by Step](https://latent-implicit-thinking.github.io/papers/2405.14838/)


## Published version

Diffusion of Thought: Chain-of-Thought Reasoning in Diffusion Language Models. Jiacheng Ye, Shansan Gong, Liheng Chen, Lin Zheng, Jiahui Gao, Han Shi, Chuan Wu, Xin Jiang, Zhenguo Li, Wei Bi, Lingpeng Kong. Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems, 2024.
[Publication](https://proceedings.neurips.cc/paper_files/paper/2024/hash/be30024e7fa2c29cac7a6dafcbb8571f-Abstract-Conference.html) · [BibTeX](https://latent-implicit-thinking.github.io/papers/2402.07754/publication.bib) · [CSL-JSON](https://latent-implicit-thinking.github.io/papers/2402.07754/publication.csl.json)
Metadata checked 2026-10-18 against [the publication record](https://proceedings.neurips.cc/paper_files/paper/2024/hash/be30024e7fa2c29cac7a6dafcbb8571f-Abstract-Conference.html).

## Approaches

- [Alternative generation methods](https://latent-implicit-thinking.github.io/topics/alternative-reasoning-schedules/): Change how intermediate steps are generated, revised, or searched—for example, by refining several steps in parallel. These are related approaches: some still produce written chains of thought.

Summary and categories are editorial. Read the original paper to verify claims and limitations. A citation to a paper does not, by itself, establish that a later method builds on it.

Reading-list version 0.9.5; literature checked through 2026-10-18.