固定每参数令牌数会误导大模型缩放规律,导致外推失效。
Tokens-per-Parameter Coverage Is Critical for Robust LLM Scaling Law Extrapolation

- 采用非共线训练设计可避免参数与数据量间的数学病态问题。
- 实验显示非共线方案在4种模型、5个数据集上胜率高达97.3%。
- 适合追求可靠模型外推的研究者与工业级大模型训练团队。
神经缩放定律将语言模型的损失近似为参数量N和令牌量D的幂律函数。遵循Chinchilla风格的计算最优训练,许多研究在固定每参数令牌数(TPP)比值k下进行训练,并设D = kN。我们发现,这种共线设计结合了参数量与数据量指数趋近相等的常见现象,导致高斯-牛顿最小二乘问题的条件数随两指数差值的平方倒数增长,使得尺度系数几乎无法识别,置信区间扩大一个数量级以上,形成‘迟钝’模型,其外推性能在训练射线外急剧下降。我们在四种缩放定律形式中证明此现象,并推导出确保良好条件估计的闭式TPP多样性阈值。实验证明,非共线设计在保留分割上优于共线设计,跨四种定律、五个语料库、多种浮点精度下胜率达97.3%。进一步表明该退化源于雅可比几何本质,任何涉及雅可比曲率的平滑估计目标均继承此病态性。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Neural scaling laws approximate a language model's loss as a power-law function of parameter count $N$ and token count $D$. Following Chinchilla-style compute-optimal training, many studies fit scaling laws from runs performed under a fixed tokens-per-parameter (TPP) ratio $k$ and set $D = kN$. We show that this collinear design, combined with the empirically common near-equality of the exponents governing $N$ and $D$, induces an inherent ill-conditioning in the Gauss-Newton least-squares problem: the condition number of the design grows as the inverse square of the gap between the $N$ and $D$-exponents. The scale coefficients become practically unidentifiable, with confidence intervals inflating by an order of magnitude or more, yielding a ``sloppy'' model whose extrapolations degrade sharply off the training ray. We prove this for four scaling-law formalisms and derive a closed-form TPP-diversity threshold that is necessary and sufficient for well-conditioned estimation. Empirically, non-collinear designs outperform collinear ones on held-out splits with a 97.3\% win rate across four laws, five corpora, multiple floating point precision modes. We further show the degeneracy is rooted in Jacobian geometry and is not an artifact of the loss function: any smooth estimation objective whose curvature involves the Jacobian inherits the same ill-conditioning.
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