Everything Everywhere All at Once: LLMs can In-Context Learn Multiple Tasks in Superposition
Fuente:
arXiv
Saved in:
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2024
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| _version_ | 1866909340104916992 |
|---|---|
| author | Xiong, Zheyang Cai, Ziyang Cooper, John Ge, Albert Papageorgiou, Vasilis Sifakis, Zack Giannou, Angeliki Lin, Ziqian Yang, Liu Agarwal, Saurabh Chrysos, Grigorios G Oymak, Samet Lee, Kangwook Papailiopoulos, Dimitris |
| author_facet | Xiong, Zheyang Cai, Ziyang Cooper, John Ge, Albert Papageorgiou, Vasilis Sifakis, Zack Giannou, Angeliki Lin, Ziqian Yang, Liu Agarwal, Saurabh Chrysos, Grigorios G Oymak, Samet Lee, Kangwook Papailiopoulos, Dimitris |
| contents | Large Language Models (LLMs) have demonstrated remarkable in-context learning (ICL) capabilities. In this study, we explore a surprising phenomenon related to ICL: LLMs can perform multiple, computationally distinct ICL tasks simultaneously, during a single inference call, a capability we term "task superposition". We provide empirical evidence of this phenomenon across various LLM families and scales and show that this phenomenon emerges even if we train the model to in-context learn one task at a time. We offer theoretical explanations that this capability is well within the expressive power of transformers. We also explore how LLMs internally compose task vectors during superposition. Furthermore, we show that larger models can solve more ICL tasks in parallel, and better calibrate their output distribution. Our findings offer insights into the latent capabilities of LLMs, further substantiate the perspective of "LLMs as superposition of simulators", and raise questions about the mechanisms enabling simultaneous task execution. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2410_05603 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2024 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Everything Everywhere All at Once: LLMs can In-Context Learn Multiple Tasks in Superposition Xiong, Zheyang Cai, Ziyang Cooper, John Ge, Albert Papageorgiou, Vasilis Sifakis, Zack Giannou, Angeliki Lin, Ziqian Yang, Liu Agarwal, Saurabh Chrysos, Grigorios G Oymak, Samet Lee, Kangwook Papailiopoulos, Dimitris Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence Computation and Language Large Language Models (LLMs) have demonstrated remarkable in-context learning (ICL) capabilities. In this study, we explore a surprising phenomenon related to ICL: LLMs can perform multiple, computationally distinct ICL tasks simultaneously, during a single inference call, a capability we term "task superposition". We provide empirical evidence of this phenomenon across various LLM families and scales and show that this phenomenon emerges even if we train the model to in-context learn one task at a time. We offer theoretical explanations that this capability is well within the expressive power of transformers. We also explore how LLMs internally compose task vectors during superposition. Furthermore, we show that larger models can solve more ICL tasks in parallel, and better calibrate their output distribution. Our findings offer insights into the latent capabilities of LLMs, further substantiate the perspective of "LLMs as superposition of simulators", and raise questions about the mechanisms enabling simultaneous task execution. |
| title | Everything Everywhere All at Once: LLMs can In-Context Learn Multiple Tasks in Superposition |
| topic | Machine Learning Artificial Intelligence Computation and Language |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.05603 |