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This research demonstrates that classical algorithms like Complement Naive Bayes remain highly efficient for text classification when labeled data is available, offering significantly higher throughput and lower energy consumption than even frontier-scale LLMs. The study provides a practical decision framework for HPC practitioners to select between resource-intensive generative models and lightweight classical methods based on specific task constraints and data availability.
LLMs or Naive Bayes? Old Gems or New Ways
arXiv:2609.13185v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) prompt a recurring question in research computing: should classical methods like Naive Bayes (NB) be retired? We benchmark Complement Naive Bayes against zero-shot and few-shot LLMs spanning four model families and a 37x range in scale (27B to a 1T-parameter mixture-of-experts) across text classification tasks. LLMs dominate only in zero-data regimes (98.0% vs 88.2% on Amazon Polarity sentiment), and even that win is contamination-prone: on a low-contamination sentiment task NB beats the zero-shot LLM (81.7% vs 73.0%). However, once labeled data is available (e.g., AG News), NB reaches 89.1% accuracy, statistically indistinguishable from the zero-shot 27B LLM (89.0%) and better than the 397B frontier model (84.8%), at thousands of samples/sec on a commodity CPU. Fine-tuned DistilBERT reaches 90.6% but at far lower throughput than NB at batch size 1 (Table 2). Our measured GPU throughput analysis shows small-LLM batched inference is 40-486x slower than NB CPU inference (the multiplier depends strongly on the host CPU), exposing a structural gap bounded by memory bandwidth, with roughly two orders of magnitude lower energy per sample. For resource-constrained HPC practitioners performing text classification with labeled data, NB remains the optimal choice. We show the decision line is task-dependent (NB reaches LLM parity around $N \sim 10^4$ labels for topic classification, while zero-data sentiment favors the LLM at all N tested) and provide a Kubernetes Helm operator that automates model selection using configurable thresholds and verifiable Prometheus metrics.
Abstract:Large language models (LLMs) prompt a recurring question in research computing: should classical methods like Naive Bayes (NB) be retired? We benchmark Complement Naive Bayes against zero-shot and few-shot LLMs spanning four model families and a 37x range in scale (27B to a 1T-parameter mixture-of-experts) across text classification tasks. LLMs dominate only in zero-data regimes (98.0% vs 88.2% on Amazon Polarity sentiment), and even that win is contamination-prone: on a low-contamination sentiment task NB beats the zero-shot LLM (81.7% vs 73.0%). However, once labeled data is available (e.g., AG News), NB reaches 89.1% accuracy, statistically indistinguishable from the zero-shot 27B LLM (89.0%) and better than the 397B frontier model (84.8%), at thousands of samples/sec on a commodity CPU. Fine-tuned DistilBERT reaches 90.6% but at far lower throughput than NB at batch size 1 (Table 2). Our measured GPU throughput analysis shows small-LLM batched inference is 40-486x slower than NB CPU inference (the multiplier depends strongly on the host CPU), exposing a structural gap bounded by memory bandwidth, with roughly two orders of magnitude lower energy per sample. For resource-constrained HPC practitioners performing text classification with labeled data, NB remains the optimal choice. We show the decision line is task-dependent (NB reaches LLM parity around $N \sim 10^4$ labels for topic classification, while zero-data sentiment favors the LLM at all N tested) and provide a Kubernetes Helm operator that automates model selection using configurable thresholds and verifiable Prometheus metrics.
6 pages, 3 figures, 5 tables. Accepted to the Proceedings of Practice and Experience in Advanced Research Computing (PEARC '26), Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Machine Learning (cs.LG); Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI); Computation and Language (cs.CL); Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing (cs.DC)
arXiv:2609.13185 [cs.LG]
(or arXiv:2609.13185v1 [cs.LG] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2609.13185 arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)
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