语言模型能持续学习新知识并存入权重,但效果受训练数据影响。
Can a Language Model Learn Facts Continually in Its Weights?

- 用多样化表述训练可减少记忆与使用间的差距
- 广泛数据训练下20次写入后仍保持46%准确率
- 遗忘是行为上的,权重中仍有知识残留
持续学习承诺语言模型在训练后仍能不断获取知识,每次新事实都写入其权重。是否权重写入能支持知识积累尚不明确。我们追踪了从创建到二十至一百次后续写入过程中,向Qwen3模型注入的虚构事实,使用五类保留问题,以原始模型在提示中给出事实作为参考。实验表明,训练数据广度决定知识类型:仅陈述式训练产生复述,而多样重述可将复述与使用差距从27.4降至5.4,且无需展示结论。该差异延续至后续写入:二十次序列写入后,陈述式事实准确率仅1%,而广泛数据训练的事实达46%。我们还发现,事实可被行为遗忘但未被擦除:遗忘事实保留大部分写入时增加的对数概率,且在陈述式训练下,70%错误答案包含最近写入的事实。相同写入对上下文使用影响极小,若遗忘事实通过提示提供,可恢复至77-80%准确率。结果表明知识以问题为键存储:后续写入重新定向到达它的提问路径。无关能力损伤与原始模型的KL散度相关,后续写入无论何种存储方式都会造成干扰。广泛数据可生成可用知识,冻结参考可保持能力,但所测试所有干预(包括基于每写入精准局部测量的)均无法维持早期事实可访问性。当需组合或经受后续写入时,可靠通道仍是上下文而非权重。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Continual learning promises a language model that keeps acquiring knowledge after training, with each new fact written into its weights. Whether weight writes can support accumulation remains undecided. We follow invented facts written into Qwen3 models from creation through sequences of twenty to one hundred later writes, using held-out questions of five types, with the original model given the fact in its prompt as the reference. Across these experiments, the breadth of the training data determines the kind of knowledge created. Bare-statement training produces recitation, while diverse restatements reduce the recitation-to-use gap from 27.4 to 5.4 points without showing the model a conclusion. This difference carries into later writes: after twenty sequential writes, bare-statement facts retain 1% accuracy while facts written from broad study data retain 46%. We also find that facts can be behaviourally forgotten without being erased. Forgotten facts keep most of the log-probability added by their write, and under bare-statement training 70% of wrong answers about them contain the most recently written fact. The same writes barely degrade the model's use of facts in context, and a forgotten study fact supplied in the prompt recovers to 77-80% on its questions. These results describe knowledge that is stored but question-keyed: later writes redirect the questions that reached it. Damage to unrelated abilities tracks KL divergence from the original model, and the later writes cause interference regardless of how the earlier fact was stored. Broad data can create usable knowledge, and a frozen reference can preserve capability, but no intervention we tested, including those built on accurate local measurements of each write, keeps earlier facts reachable. When facts must be composed or survive later writes, the reliable channel is context rather than the weights.
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