Quantifying Generalization Complexity for Large Language Models

Fuente: arXiv
Gespeichert in:
Bibliographische Detailangaben
Hauptverfasser: Qi, Zhenting, Luo, Hongyin, Huang, Xuliang, Zhao, Zhuokai, Jiang, Yibo, Fan, Xiangjun, Lakkaraju, Himabindu, Glass, James
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2024
Schlagworte:
Online-Zugang:
Tags: Tag hinzufügen
Keine Tags, Fügen Sie den ersten Tag hinzu!
_version_ 1866916421514035200
author Qi, Zhenting
Luo, Hongyin
Huang, Xuliang
Zhao, Zhuokai
Jiang, Yibo
Fan, Xiangjun
Lakkaraju, Himabindu
Glass, James
author_facet Qi, Zhenting
Luo, Hongyin
Huang, Xuliang
Zhao, Zhuokai
Jiang, Yibo
Fan, Xiangjun
Lakkaraju, Himabindu
Glass, James
contents While large language models (LLMs) have shown exceptional capabilities in understanding complex queries and performing sophisticated tasks, their generalization abilities are often deeply entangled with memorization, necessitating more precise evaluation. To address this challenge, we introduce Scylla, a dynamic evaluation framework that quantitatively measures the generalization abilities of LLMs. Scylla disentangles generalization from memorization via assessing model performance on both in-distribution (ID) and out-of-distribution (OOD) data through 20 tasks across 5 levels of complexity. Through extensive experiments, we uncover a non-monotonic relationship between task complexity and the performance gap between ID and OOD data, which we term the generalization valley. Specifically, this phenomenon reveals a critical threshold - referred to as critical complexity - where reliance on non-generalizable behavior peaks, indicating the upper bound of LLMs' generalization capabilities. As model size increases, the critical complexity shifts toward higher levels of task complexity, suggesting that larger models can handle more complex reasoning tasks before over-relying on memorization. Leveraging Scylla and the concept of critical complexity, we benchmark 28LLMs including both open-sourced models such as LLaMA and Qwen families, and close-sourced models like Claude and GPT, providing a more robust evaluation and establishing a clearer understanding of LLMs' generalization capabilities.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2410_01769
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Quantifying Generalization Complexity for Large Language Models
Qi, Zhenting
Luo, Hongyin
Huang, Xuliang
Zhao, Zhuokai
Jiang, Yibo
Fan, Xiangjun
Lakkaraju, Himabindu
Glass, James
Computation and Language
While large language models (LLMs) have shown exceptional capabilities in understanding complex queries and performing sophisticated tasks, their generalization abilities are often deeply entangled with memorization, necessitating more precise evaluation. To address this challenge, we introduce Scylla, a dynamic evaluation framework that quantitatively measures the generalization abilities of LLMs. Scylla disentangles generalization from memorization via assessing model performance on both in-distribution (ID) and out-of-distribution (OOD) data through 20 tasks across 5 levels of complexity. Through extensive experiments, we uncover a non-monotonic relationship between task complexity and the performance gap between ID and OOD data, which we term the generalization valley. Specifically, this phenomenon reveals a critical threshold - referred to as critical complexity - where reliance on non-generalizable behavior peaks, indicating the upper bound of LLMs' generalization capabilities. As model size increases, the critical complexity shifts toward higher levels of task complexity, suggesting that larger models can handle more complex reasoning tasks before over-relying on memorization. Leveraging Scylla and the concept of critical complexity, we benchmark 28LLMs including both open-sourced models such as LLaMA and Qwen families, and close-sourced models like Claude and GPT, providing a more robust evaluation and establishing a clearer understanding of LLMs' generalization capabilities.
title Quantifying Generalization Complexity for Large Language Models
topic Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.01769