# Text Generation Beyond Discrete Token Sampling

Authors: Yufan Zhuang, Liyuan Liu, Chandan Singh, Jingbo Shang, Jianfeng Gao.

Feeds posterior expectations back into a language model so intermediate generation can remain continuous instead of sampling discrete tokens.

First public: 2025-05-20.
ArXiv initial submission: 2025-05-20.

[Original paper](https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.14827) · [Reading-list entry](https://latent-implicit-thinking.github.io/papers/2505.14827/)
[Preprint BibTeX](https://latent-implicit-thinking.github.io/papers/2505.14827/citation.bib) · [Preprint CSL-JSON](https://latent-implicit-thinking.github.io/papers/2505.14827/citation.csl.json) · [JSON record](https://latent-implicit-thinking.github.io/papers/2505.14827/record.json)

## Approaches

- [Continuous-state reasoning](https://latent-implicit-thinking.github.io/topics/continuous-states/): Use vectors—lists of numbers—to carry intermediate reasoning from one step to the next, instead of selecting a text token at every step. Some methods use the model's hidden states; others combine several candidate token representations.
- [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.