Humans possess an extraordinary ability to create and utilize tools, allowing them to overcome physical limitations and explore new frontiers. With the advent of foundation models, AI systems have the potential to be equally adept in tool use as humans. This paradigm, i.e., tool learning with foundation models, combines the strengths of specialized tools and foundation models to achieve enhanced accuracy, efficiency, and automation in problem-solving. Despite its immense potential, there is still a lack of a comprehensive understanding of key challenges, opportunities, and future endeavors in this field. To this end, we present a systematic investigation of tool learning in this paper. We first introduce the background of tool learning, including its cognitive origins, the paradigm shift of foundation models, and the complementary roles of tools and models. Then we recapitulate existing tool learning research into tool-augmented and tool-oriented learning. We formulate a general tool learning framework: starting from understanding the user instruction, models should learn to decompose a complex task into several subtasks, dynamically adjust their plan through reasoning, and effectively conquer each sub-task by selecting appropriate tools. We also discuss how to train models for improved tool-use capabilities and facilitate the generalization in tool learning. Considering the lack of a systematic tool learning evaluation in prior works, we experiment with 17 representative tools and show the potential of current foundation models in skillfully utilizing tools. Finally, we discuss several open problems that require further investigation for tool learning. Overall, we hope this paper could inspire future research in integrating tools with foundation models.

本文系统地介绍了工具学习在认知起源、模型学习和用户指令等方面的背景，并总结了现有的工具增强和工具导向学习研究，并提出了一个通用的工具学习框架。最后通过17个代表性工具的实验结果展示了基金会模型在熟练使用工具方面的潜力，同时指出了需要进一步研究的几个开放性问题。

基础模型的工具学习