This paper explores the efficacy of large language models (LLMs) for Persian. While ChatGPT and consequent LLMs have shown remarkable performance in English, their efficiency for more low-resource languages remains an open question. We present the first comprehensive benchmarking study of LLMs across diverse Persian language tasks. Our primary focus is on GPT-3.5-turbo, but we also include GPT-4 and OpenChat-3.5 to provide a more holistic evaluation. Our assessment encompasses a diverse set of tasks categorized into classic, reasoning, and knowledge-based domains. To enable a thorough comparison, we evaluate LLMs against existing task-specific fine-tuned models. Given the limited availability of Persian datasets for reasoning tasks, we introduce two new benchmarks: one based on elementary school math questions and another derived from the entrance exams for 7th and 10th grades. Our findings reveal that while LLMs, especially GPT-4, excel in tasks requiring reasoning abilities and a broad understanding of general knowledge, they often lag behind smaller pre-trained models fine-tuned specifically for particular tasks. Additionally, we observe improved performance when test sets are translated to English before inputting them into GPT-3.5. These results highlight the significant potential for enhancing LLM performance in the Persian language. This is particularly noteworthy due to the unique attributes of Persian, including its distinct alphabet and writing styles.

本文探讨了大型语言模型（LLMs）在波斯语中的有效性。研究发现，虽然ChatGPT和其他LLMs在英语中表现出色，但它们在资源稀缺的语言上的效率仍然是一个悬而未决的问题。研究通过对各种波斯语任务进行全面的基准测试研究，重点评估了GPT-3.5-turbo，同时还包括GPT-4和OpenChat-3.5，以提供更全面的评估。研究结果显示，虽然LLMs，特别是GPT-4，在需要推理能力和对一般知识的广泛理解的任务中表现出色，但它们通常落后于针对特定任务进行细化调整的较小的预训练模型。此外，研究还观察到将测试集翻译成英语后输入GPT-3.5会改善其性能。这些结果突显了提升波斯语中LLM性能的重要潜力，这尤其值得注意，因为波斯语具有独特的字母和写作风格。

波斯语大型语言模型基准测试：关注ChatGPT的初步研究