发现机器人任务中提速优化反而可能拖慢整体进度,提出新分析框架揭示其背后机制。
The Speedup Paradox: Rethinking Inference Speed-Quality Trade-off in Embodied Tasks

- 提出TISED框架,分解推理加速对静态与动态任务的影响
- 发现在动态任务中适度压缩可提升成功率达基线以上
- 揭示硬件配置改变时最优加速点会迁移,打破传统认知
具身基础模型近年被广泛用于提升机器人泛化能力与任务成功率。以往工作采用量化、剪枝、异步推理等有损高效推理技术,在接受小幅动作质量下降的前提下降低每步计算成本与交互延迟。然而,与传统静态机器学习任务不同,具身任务涉及与环境的持续交互,任务级性能不仅取决于单步开销,还受具身执行特有的闭环效应影响,而现有高效推理研究对此关注不足。本文提出TISED(任务级推理加速效应分解)分析框架,统一多种有损推理优化技术,并分解其在静态与动态任务中的影响,揭示出若干悖论性现象:(1) 在静态任务中,尽管单步延迟下降,端到端任务完成时间反而可能延长;(2) 在动态任务中,适度的有损优化可使任务成功率超过基线;(3) 两类效应的单调性及最佳平衡点会随硬件配置变化。这些发现为具身任务中推理优化技术的适配提供了新视角。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Embodied foundation models have recently been widely used to improve robot generalization and task success rates. Previous works apply lossy efficient-inference techniques such as quantization, pruning, and asynchronous inference, accepting small action quality degradation in exchange for lower per-step computation cost and inter-action latency. However, unlike traditional static ML tasks, embodied tasks involve repeated interaction with the environment, and task-level performance is determined not only by per-step cost, but also by closed-loop effects unique to embodied execution, which remain insufficiently characterized in current efficient-inference studies. In this work, we propose TISED (\underline{T}ask-level \underline{I}nference \underline{S}peedup \underline{E}ffect \underline{D}ecomposition), an analytical framework that unifies diverse lossy inference optimization techniques and decomposes their effects on static and dynamic tasks, and uncovers some paradoxical effects on task-level performance: (1) on \textit{static tasks}, optimization sometimes can lengthen end-to-end per-task completion time even as per-step latency drops; (2) on \textit{dynamic tasks}, moderate lossy optimization can raise task success rate even above the baseline; and (3) the monotonicity and sweet-spot location of both effects can shift with hardware configuration. Together, our findings provide a new perspective on adapting inference optimization techniques to embodied tasks.
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