Paper Detail
Terry Leitch
We present a systematic evaluation of large language model families -- spanning both proprietary cloud APIs and locally-hosted open-source models -- on two purpose-built benchmarks for System Dynamics AI assistance: the \textbf{CLD Leaderboard} (53 tests, structured causal loop diagram extraction) and the \textbf{Discussion Leaderboard} (interactive model discussion, feedback explanation, and model building coaching). On CLD extraction, cloud models achieve 77--89\% overall pass rates; the best local model reaches 77\% (Kimi~K2.5~GGUF~Q3, zero-shot engine), matching mid-tier cloud performance. On Discussion, the best local models achieve 50--100\% on model building steps and 47--75\% on feedback explanation, but only 0--50\% on error fixing -- a category dominated by long-context prompts that expose memory limits in local deployments. A central contribution of this paper is a systematic analysis of \textit{model type effects} on performance: we compare reasoning vs.\ instruction-tuned architectures, GGUF (llama.cpp) vs.\ MLX (mlx\_lm) backends, and quantization levels (Q3 / Q4\_K\_M / MLX-3bit / MLX-4bit / MLX-6bit) across the same underlying model families. We find that backend choice has larger practical impact than quantization level: mlx\_lm does not enforce JSON schema constraints, requiring explicit prompt-level JSON instructions, while llama.cpp grammar-constrained sampling handles JSON reliably but causes indefinite generation on long-context prompts for dense models. We document the full parameter sweep ($t$, $p$, $k$) for all local models, cleaned timing data (stuck requests excluded), and a practitioner guide for running 671B--123B parameter models on Apple~Silicon.
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@article{leitch2026benchmarking,
title = {Benchmarking System Dynamics AI Assistants: Cloud Versus Local LLMs on CLD Extraction and Discussion},
author = {Terry Leitch},
year = {2026},
abstract = {We present a systematic evaluation of large language model families -- spanning both proprietary cloud APIs and locally-hosted open-source models -- on two purpose-built benchmarks for System Dynamics AI assistance: the \textbackslash{}textbf\{CLD Leaderboard\} (53 tests, structured causal loop diagram extraction) and the \textbackslash{}textbf\{Discussion Leaderboard\} (interactive model discussion, feedback explanation, and model building coaching). On CLD extraction, cloud models achieve 77--89\textbackslash{}\% overall pass rates; the best },
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.18566},
keywords = {cs.AI, cs.HC, cs.LG},
eprint = {2604.18566},
archiveprefix = {arXiv},
}
{}