提出可调的特征选择机制,让稀疏自编码器更智能地平衡全局一致与局部细节。
Distribution-Aware Feature Selection for SAEs
- 基于特征重要性评分,从候选池中按批次选关键特征,实现分布感知选择。
- 在Pythia-160M上,不同超参数$ l $对重构精度和下游任务表现有差异,无统一最优值。
- 支持从全局共享到局部精细的灵活切换,适合需要权衡结构一致性与重建精度的场景。
稀疏自编码器(SAEs)将神经网络激活分解为可解释特征。主流的TopK SAE通过每个标记的K个最活跃隐变量重建,但效率低,因不同标记携带信息量不均。批量版的BatchTopK通过跨批次选取最高激活来改进平均重建效果,却可能导致‘激活彩票’问题——罕见高幅特征压制更优但幅值较低的特征。为此,本文提出Sampled-SAE:对批次激活矩阵的列(代表特征)进行$ L_2 $范数或熵评分,构建大小为$ Kl $的候选池,再在该受限池中执行批内Top-K选择。通过调节$ l $,可在批级与标记特异性选择间形成连续谱。当$ l=1 $时,标记仅从$ K $个全局主导特征中选取;$ l $增大则池子扩展,趋近标准BatchTopK与更多标记特异性特征。小$ l $强化全局一致性,大$ l $提升细粒度重建。在Pythia-160M上,不存在单一$ l $值能同时优化所有指标:最佳选择取决于共享结构、重构保真度与下游性能之间的权衡。因此,Sampled-SAE将BatchTopK重构为一个可调的、分布感知的家族。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Sparse autoencoders (SAEs) decompose neural activations into interpretable features. A widely adopted variant, the TopK SAE, reconstructs each token from its K most active latents. However, this approach is inefficient, as some tokens carry more information than others. BatchTopK addresses this limitation by selecting top activations across a batch of tokens. This improves average reconstruction but risks an "activation lottery," where rare high-magnitude features crowd out more informative but lower-magnitude ones. To address this issue, we introduce Sampled-SAE: we score the columns (representing features) of the batch activation matrix (via $L_2$ norm or entropy), forming a candidate pool of size $Kl$, and then apply Top-$K$ to select tokens across the batch from the restricted pool of features. Varying $l$ traces a spectrum between batch-level and token-specific selection. At $l=1$, tokens draw only from $K$ globally influential features, while larger $l$ expands the pool toward standard BatchTopK and more token-specific features across the batch. Small $l$ thus enforces global consistency; large $l$ favors fine-grained reconstruction. On Pythia-160M, no single value optimizes $l$ across all metrics: the best choice depends on the trade-off between shared structure, reconstruction fidelity, and downstream performance. Sampled-SAE thus reframes BatchTopK as a tunable, distribution-aware family.
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