arXiv:2607.16246cs.LGcs.AI2026-07

通过数据自适应选择训练目标,提升大模型持续预训练效果

Let the Data Decide: Supervision Analysis, Capability Trade-offs, and Adaptive Objective Routing in Continued Pre-Training via Off-Policy Distillation

  • 基于数据特性动态切换语言建模与知识蒸馏目标
  • 支持度大小和温度参数决定监督覆盖范围与精度权衡
  • 领域级路由优于词级路由,关键在信号质量而非粒度

当前大型语言模型的持续预训练高度依赖非策略蒸馏,但训练数据、目标参数化与模型能力之间的关系仍不明确。本文通过分解问题为‘目标到能力’与‘数据到目标’两个层面,研究了顶-k截断、温度缩放的非策略蒸馏。结果表明,语言建模目标($L_{\mathrm{LM}}$)与知识蒸馏目标($L_{\mathrm{KD}}$)会引发系统性不同的能力分布,其差异源于对‘直接观测词元强化’与‘教师支持的替代监督’之间梯度层面的张力。我们引入支持覆盖率、观测词元概率质量、教师分布集中度等诊断指标,发现支持度 $k$ 控制覆盖-锐度权衡,温度调节组内概率分配。进一步验证自适应目标路由:在数学与代码数据上用 $L_{\mathrm{LM}}$,通用领域用 $L_{\mathrm{KD}}$ 可稳定超越单目标基线;而基于观测概率或教师熵的词级路由无法一致达到基线水平。结论表明,有效路由更依赖信号质量而非粒度,将持续预训练重构为数据条件化的监督设计问题。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Off-policy distillation is now central to large language model pre-training, yet how training data, objective parameterization, and model capabilities interact remains poorly characterized. We studies top-$k$-truncated, temperature-scaled off-policy distillation by decomposing this problem into two questions: an \emph{objective-to-capability} analysis of how the training objective shapes token-level supervision and downstream performance, and a \emph{data-to-objective} analysis of how data heterogeneity should inform objective routing. We first show that the language-modeling objective ($L_{\mathrm{LM}}$) and the knowledge-distillation objective ($L_{\mathrm{KD}}$) induce systematically different capability profiles, and trace this divergence to a gradient-level tension between \emph{direct observed-token reinforcement} and \emph{teacher-supported alternative supervision}. To quantify this tension, we introduce diagnostic metrics -- support coverage, observed-token probability mass, and teacher-distribution concentration -- and show via controlled sweeps that the support size $k$ governs a coverage-sharpness trade-off, while distillation temperature controls within-support probability allocation. We then examine adaptive objective routing: a domain-level policy that applies $L_{\mathrm{LM}}$ to math and code and $L_{\mathrm{KD}}$ to general-domain data yields consistent gains over both single-objective baselines, whereas token-level routing based on observed-token probability mass or teacher entropy fails to consistently match the single-objective baseline. These results suggest that effective objective routing depends less on routing granularity than on the quality of the routing signal, reframing continued pre-training via off-policy distillation as a structured, data-conditional supervision-design problem rather than a global hyperparameter choice.

持续预训练知识蒸馏目标路由监督设计

Thank you to arXiv for use of its open access interoperability. PaperDance 不是 arXiv 官方产品;中文卡片由大模型生成,请以原文为准。