Towards Lifelong Learning of Large Language Models: A Survey

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Zheng, Junhao, Qiu, Shengjie, Shi, Chengming, Ma, Qianli
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2024
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author Zheng, Junhao
Qiu, Shengjie
Shi, Chengming
Ma, Qianli
author_facet Zheng, Junhao
Qiu, Shengjie
Shi, Chengming
Ma, Qianli
contents As the applications of large language models (LLMs) expand across diverse fields, the ability of these models to adapt to ongoing changes in data, tasks, and user preferences becomes crucial. Traditional training methods, relying on static datasets, are increasingly inadequate for coping with the dynamic nature of real-world information. Lifelong learning, also known as continual or incremental learning, addresses this challenge by enabling LLMs to learn continuously and adaptively over their operational lifetime, integrating new knowledge while retaining previously learned information and preventing catastrophic forgetting. This survey delves into the sophisticated landscape of lifelong learning, categorizing strategies into two primary groups: Internal Knowledge and External Knowledge. Internal Knowledge includes continual pretraining and continual finetuning, each enhancing the adaptability of LLMs in various scenarios. External Knowledge encompasses retrieval-based and tool-based lifelong learning, leveraging external data sources and computational tools to extend the model's capabilities without modifying core parameters. The key contributions of our survey are: (1) Introducing a novel taxonomy categorizing the extensive literature of lifelong learning into 12 scenarios; (2) Identifying common techniques across all lifelong learning scenarios and classifying existing literature into various technique groups within each scenario; (3) Highlighting emerging techniques such as model expansion and data selection, which were less explored in the pre-LLM era. Through a detailed examination of these groups and their respective categories, this survey aims to enhance the adaptability, reliability, and overall performance of LLMs in real-world applications.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2406_06391
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Towards Lifelong Learning of Large Language Models: A Survey
Zheng, Junhao
Qiu, Shengjie
Shi, Chengming
Ma, Qianli
Machine Learning
Computation and Language
As the applications of large language models (LLMs) expand across diverse fields, the ability of these models to adapt to ongoing changes in data, tasks, and user preferences becomes crucial. Traditional training methods, relying on static datasets, are increasingly inadequate for coping with the dynamic nature of real-world information. Lifelong learning, also known as continual or incremental learning, addresses this challenge by enabling LLMs to learn continuously and adaptively over their operational lifetime, integrating new knowledge while retaining previously learned information and preventing catastrophic forgetting. This survey delves into the sophisticated landscape of lifelong learning, categorizing strategies into two primary groups: Internal Knowledge and External Knowledge. Internal Knowledge includes continual pretraining and continual finetuning, each enhancing the adaptability of LLMs in various scenarios. External Knowledge encompasses retrieval-based and tool-based lifelong learning, leveraging external data sources and computational tools to extend the model's capabilities without modifying core parameters. The key contributions of our survey are: (1) Introducing a novel taxonomy categorizing the extensive literature of lifelong learning into 12 scenarios; (2) Identifying common techniques across all lifelong learning scenarios and classifying existing literature into various technique groups within each scenario; (3) Highlighting emerging techniques such as model expansion and data selection, which were less explored in the pre-LLM era. Through a detailed examination of these groups and their respective categories, this survey aims to enhance the adaptability, reliability, and overall performance of LLMs in real-world applications.
title Towards Lifelong Learning of Large Language Models: A Survey
topic Machine Learning
Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.06391