arXiv:2601.18909cs.LG2026-01

揭示知识蒸馏中不确定性传播机制,提出降噪新方法

How Is Uncertainty Propagated in Knowledge Distillation?

  • 区分学生间与学生内不确定性,发现传统蒸馏抑制内部变异性
  • 通过多教师平均和反方差加权,实现噪声降低至1/k速率
  • 适用于各类模型,尤其提升大模型蒸馏稳定性与可靠性

知识蒸馏将教师模型的行为传递给学生模型,但该过程本质上是随机的:教师输出、学生训练和推理均可能具有随机性。将这些不确定性简化为单一点估计会扭曲学习内容。我们系统研究了不确定性在三类典型模型——线性回归、前馈神经网络和大语言模型(LLMs)——中的传播规律,并提出了简单修正方法。区分了学生间不确定性(多个独立蒸馏的学生之间的差异)与学生内不确定性(单个学生预测分布的方差),发现标准单响应蒸馏抑制了学生内方差,而保留了显著的学生间变异性。为解决这一不匹配,我们引入两种方差感知策略:平均多个教师响应,可使噪声以 $O(1/k)$ 速率下降;反方差加权,通过逆方差加权结合教师与学生估计,得到最小方差估计器。我们在线性回归中提供形式化保证,在神经网络中验证方法有效性,并在大语言模型蒸馏中展示实证优势,包括减少系统性噪声与幻觉。结果表明,知识蒸馏本质上是不确定性转换过程,方差感知蒸馏能生成更稳定的模型,更好反映教师的不确定性。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Knowledge distillation transfers behavior from a teacher to a student model, but the process is inherently stochastic: teacher outputs, student training, and student inference can all be random. Collapsing these uncertainties to a single point estimate can distort what is learned. We systematically study how uncertainty propagates through knowledge distillation across three representative model classes--linear regression, feed-forward neural networks, and large language models (LLMs)--and propose simple corrections. We distinguish inter-student uncertainty (variance across independently distilled students) from intra-student uncertainty (variance of a single student's predictive distribution), showing that standard single-response knowledge distillation suppresses intra-student variance while leaving substantial inter-student variability. To address these mismatches, we introduce two variance-aware strategies: averaging multiple teacher responses, which reduces noise at rate $O(1/k)$, and variance-weighting, which combines teacher and student estimates via inverse-variance weighting to yield a minimum-variance estimator. We provide formal guarantees in linear regression, validate the methods in neural networks, and demonstrate empirical gains in LLM distillation, including reduced systematic noise and hallucination. These results reframe knowledge distillation as an uncertainty transformation and show that variance-aware distillation produces more stable students that better reflect teacher uncertainty.

知识蒸馏不确定性建模大模型压缩

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