arXiv:2410.10796cs.LGcs.CL2024-10被引 10

指令微调反而让模型更依赖预训练知识,忽视用户上下文。

Context-Parametric Inversion: Why Instruction Finetuning Can Worsen Context Reliance

  • 微调时模型先更依赖上下文,后逐渐回归预训练知识。
  • 在知识冲突场景下,模型对上下文的依赖性随微调下降。
  • 适用于研究指令微调缺陷与模型行为机制的人。

使用大语言模型时,用户常通过输入上下文提供新信息以指导模型。然而,当上下文与模型预训练知识冲突时,模型难以可靠遵循。理论上,指令微调应提升模型对上下文的依赖性,尤其在知识冲突时。但实验发现:微调初期上下文依赖上升,随后逐渐下降,而标准基准性能仍在持续提升。这一现象称为「上下文-参数倒置」,在TULU、Alpaca、Ultrachat等数据集及Llama、Mistral、Pythia等模型上均被观察到。控制实验与理论分析表明,该现象源于微调数据中部分示例的上下文与模型预训练知识一致。分析提出有限但有启发性的缓解策略,为改进指令微调提供了起点。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

A standard practice when using large language models is for users to supplement their instruction with an input context containing new information for the model to process. However, models struggle to reliably follow the input context, especially when it conflicts with their parametric knowledge from pretraining. In-principle, one would expect models to adapt to the user context better after instruction finetuning, particularly when handling knowledge conflicts. However, we observe a surprising failure mode: during instruction tuning, the context reliance under knowledge conflicts initially increases as expected, but then gradually decreases as instruction finetuning progresses. This happens while the performance on standard benchmarks keeps on increasing far after this drop. We call this phenomenon context-parametric inversion and observe it across multiple general purpose instruction tuning datasets such as TULU, Alpaca and Ultrachat, across different model families like Llama, Mistral, and Pythia. We perform various controlled studies and theoretical analysis to show that context-parametric inversion occurs due to examples in the instruction finetuning data where the input context provides information that aligns with model's parametric knowledge. Our analysis suggests some natural mitigation strategies with limited but insightful gains, and serves as a useful starting point in addressing this deficiency in instruction finetuning.

指令微调上下文依赖模型偏差

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