Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Ovadia, Oded, Brief, Menachem, Mishaeli, Moshik, Elisha, Oren
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.05934
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866916109744078848
author Ovadia, Oded
Brief, Menachem
Mishaeli, Moshik
Elisha, Oren
author_facet Ovadia, Oded
Brief, Menachem
Mishaeli, Moshik
Elisha, Oren
contents Large language models (LLMs) encapsulate a vast amount of factual information within their pre-trained weights, as evidenced by their ability to answer diverse questions across different domains. However, this knowledge is inherently limited, relying heavily on the characteristics of the training data. Consequently, using external datasets to incorporate new information or refine the capabilities of LLMs on previously seen information poses a significant challenge. In this study, we compare two common approaches: unsupervised fine-tuning and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). We evaluate both approaches on a variety of knowledge-intensive tasks across different topics. Our findings reveal that while unsupervised fine-tuning offers some improvement, RAG consistently outperforms it, both for existing knowledge encountered during training and entirely new knowledge. Moreover, we find that LLMs struggle to learn new factual information through unsupervised fine-tuning, and that exposing them to numerous variations of the same fact during training could alleviate this problem.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2312_05934
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Fine-Tuning or Retrieval? Comparing Knowledge Injection in LLMs
Ovadia, Oded
Brief, Menachem
Mishaeli, Moshik
Elisha, Oren
Artificial Intelligence
Computation and Language
Machine Learning
Large language models (LLMs) encapsulate a vast amount of factual information within their pre-trained weights, as evidenced by their ability to answer diverse questions across different domains. However, this knowledge is inherently limited, relying heavily on the characteristics of the training data. Consequently, using external datasets to incorporate new information or refine the capabilities of LLMs on previously seen information poses a significant challenge. In this study, we compare two common approaches: unsupervised fine-tuning and retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). We evaluate both approaches on a variety of knowledge-intensive tasks across different topics. Our findings reveal that while unsupervised fine-tuning offers some improvement, RAG consistently outperforms it, both for existing knowledge encountered during training and entirely new knowledge. Moreover, we find that LLMs struggle to learn new factual information through unsupervised fine-tuning, and that exposing them to numerous variations of the same fact during training could alleviate this problem.
title Fine-Tuning or Retrieval? Comparing Knowledge Injection in LLMs
topic Artificial Intelligence
Computation and Language
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.05934