重要参数不可单独训练,结构化微调才有效
Super Weights in LLMs and the Failure of Selective Training

- 单独训练超级权重会破坏模型性能
- 随机选点训练反而优于聚焦超级权重
- 结构化微调比盯住关键参数更可靠
近期研究发现超级权重——移除后导致模型性能下降数个数量级的个别参数。我们发现这种退化并非在所有大模型中普遍成立。若这些参数如此关键,针对它们的训练应能提升性能,但结果相反:仅训练超级权重(100至8,192个参数)会使OLMo-1B和OLMo-7B在任务上准确率降至随机猜测水平;扩展到最多36K邻近参数也无改善。该失败特异于超级权重坐标:同等数量的随机位置训练反而优于基线。标准LoRA(更新注意力矩阵所有位置,仅0.16%参数)表现良好,将相同低秩更新应用于down_proj层亦成功。10次种子实验验证,限制LoRA更新在超级权重位置时结果无统计差异。结论:参数重要性不等于可独立训练性,有效微调依赖于对整个层的结构化分解而非孤立关键参数。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Recent work identified Super Weights, individual parameters whose removal degrades model performance by orders of magnitude. We show that this degradation due to pruning Super Weights does not universally apply to all LLMs. Furthermore, if these parameters are so important, Super Weight-aware training should be effective. We show the opposite. Training Super Weights in isolation (100 to 8,192 parameters) drops accuracy to random-guessing levels on both OLMo-1B and OLMo-7B, and expanding to local neighborhoods of up to 36K parameters provides no improvement. The failure is specific to Super Weight coordinates: training an equal number of randomly chosen positions in the same down_proj layers instead improves over the baseline, so the collapse comes from targeting Super Weights, not from sparsity itself. Vanilla LoRA, updating every position in attention weight matrices through low-rank structure, succeeds with only 0.16% of parameters, and applying the same low-rank update to down_proj succeeds as well. A 10-seed ablation confirms that constraining LoRA updates at positions corresponding to Super Weight coordinates yields statistically indistinguishable results. These findings establish that parameter importance does not imply parameter trainability in isolation, and that effective fine-tuning relies on structured decompositions over entire layers rather than targeting individually important weights.
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