arXiv:2606.15327cs.LG2026-06

改进扩散语言模型的采样稳定性与多样性,通过优化过渡核设计平衡偏差与方差。

Semantic DLM+: Improving Diffusion Language Models through Bias-variance Trade-off in Transition Kernel Design

  • 引入偏差-方差权衡分析,揭示过渡核对模型训练与采样的影响机制。
  • 在LM1B和OpenWebText上实现更稳定训练与媲美主流模型的生成质量。
  • 提出新方法解决语义区域困局,提升生成文本多样性,适合生成任务研究者。

扩散语言模型(DLMs)展现出强大的扩展能力,可作为自回归语言模型的替代方案。然而其性能高度依赖过渡核的设计,不当设计会导致训练不稳定、收敛缓慢及采样偏差。本文通过泛化误差的系统分析,识别出三个关键因素:渐近偏差(难以逼近后验分布)、暴露偏差(采样中误差传播)以及由核分散引起的优化方差。对比不同过渡核发现:掩码扩散具有稀疏且易逼近的后验目标,而均匀扩散虽具更强采样修复能力,但逼近难度更高。受此启发,我们重新审视此前被忽视的语义扩散模型(SemDLM),其过渡核将词元扰动至语义相近邻域。理论表明,该方法可在保持修复能力的同时降低后验逼近难度,但实际中存在语义盆地问题,导致采样重复停留于局部语义区,生成多样性低。为此,我们提出SemDLM+,在采样阶段引入全局转移机制与语义频率惩罚项。在LM1B和OpenWebText上的实验表明,SemDLM+显著改善训练动态,实现具备竞争力的语言建模与生成质量,并保证良好多样性。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Diffusion Language Models (DLMs) have demonstrated strong scaling capacity as alternatives to autoregressive language models. However, their performance is highly sensitive to the choice of transition kernels, and poorly designed kernels can lead to issues like training instability, slow convergence, and biased sampling. In this paper, we study this sensitivity through a principled analysis of generalization error and identify three critical factors: asymptotic bias (difficulty in approximating the posterior distribution), exposure bias (error propagation during sampling), and optimization variance induced by kernel dispersion. We further compare different transition kernels: masking diffusion yields sparse and easier posterior-approximation targets, while uniform diffusion provides stronger sampling-side repair but induces harder approximation. Motivated by this trade-off, we revisit a previously overlooked variant, semantic DLM (SemDLM), where the transition kernel corrupts tokens to neighborhoods that are semantically similar. Our theory suggests that SemDLM can serve as a plausible middle ground by reducing the posterior approximation difficulty of uniform diffusion while retaining repair ability. However, we find that SemDLM suffers from a semantic basin problem, where sampling repeatedly stays within a semantic region and produces low-diversity text. To address this, we propose SemDLM+, which adds a global transition and a semantic-frequency penalty during sampling. Experiments on LM1B and OpenWebText show that SemDLM+ improves training dynamics and achieves competitive language modeling and generation quality with satisfactory diversity.

扩散模型语言建模生成质量

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