A Comprehensive Survey of Small Language Models in the Era of Large Language Models: Techniques, Enhancements, Applications, Collaboration with LLMs, and Trustworthiness

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Hauptverfasser: Wang, Fali, Zhang, Zhiwei, Zhang, Xianren, Wu, Zongyu, Mo, Tzuhao, Lu, Qiuhao, Wang, Wanjing, Li, Rui, Xu, Junjie, Tang, Xianfeng, He, Qi, Ma, Yao, Huang, Ming, Wang, Suhang
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Veröffentlicht: 2024
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author Wang, Fali
Zhang, Zhiwei
Zhang, Xianren
Wu, Zongyu
Mo, Tzuhao
Lu, Qiuhao
Wang, Wanjing
Li, Rui
Xu, Junjie
Tang, Xianfeng
He, Qi
Ma, Yao
Huang, Ming
Wang, Suhang
author_facet Wang, Fali
Zhang, Zhiwei
Zhang, Xianren
Wu, Zongyu
Mo, Tzuhao
Lu, Qiuhao
Wang, Wanjing
Li, Rui
Xu, Junjie
Tang, Xianfeng
He, Qi
Ma, Yao
Huang, Ming
Wang, Suhang
contents Large language models (LLMs) have demonstrated emergent abilities in text generation, question answering, and reasoning, facilitating various tasks and domains. Despite their proficiency in various tasks, LLMs like PaLM 540B and Llama-3.1 405B face limitations due to large parameter sizes and computational demands, often requiring cloud API use which raises privacy concerns, limits real-time applications on edge devices, and increases fine-tuning costs. Additionally, LLMs often underperform in specialized domains such as healthcare and law due to insufficient domain-specific knowledge, necessitating specialized models. Therefore, Small Language Models (SLMs) are increasingly favored for their low inference latency, cost-effectiveness, efficient development, and easy customization and adaptability. These models are particularly well-suited for resource-limited environments and domain knowledge acquisition, addressing LLMs' challenges and proving ideal for applications that require localized data handling for privacy, minimal inference latency for efficiency, and domain knowledge acquisition through lightweight fine-tuning. The rising demand for SLMs has spurred extensive research and development. However, a comprehensive survey investigating issues related to the definition, acquisition, application, enhancement, and reliability of SLM remains lacking, prompting us to conduct a detailed survey on these topics. The definition of SLMs varies widely, thus to standardize, we propose defining SLMs by their capability to perform specialized tasks and suitability for resource-constrained settings, setting boundaries based on the minimal size for emergent abilities and the maximum size sustainable under resource constraints. For other aspects, we provide a taxonomy of relevant models/methods and develop general frameworks for each category to enhance and utilize SLMs effectively.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2411_03350
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Comprehensive Survey of Small Language Models in the Era of Large Language Models: Techniques, Enhancements, Applications, Collaboration with LLMs, and Trustworthiness
Wang, Fali
Zhang, Zhiwei
Zhang, Xianren
Wu, Zongyu
Mo, Tzuhao
Lu, Qiuhao
Wang, Wanjing
Li, Rui
Xu, Junjie
Tang, Xianfeng
He, Qi
Ma, Yao
Huang, Ming
Wang, Suhang
Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
68T50 (Primary) 68T07 (Secondary)
I.2.7
Large language models (LLMs) have demonstrated emergent abilities in text generation, question answering, and reasoning, facilitating various tasks and domains. Despite their proficiency in various tasks, LLMs like PaLM 540B and Llama-3.1 405B face limitations due to large parameter sizes and computational demands, often requiring cloud API use which raises privacy concerns, limits real-time applications on edge devices, and increases fine-tuning costs. Additionally, LLMs often underperform in specialized domains such as healthcare and law due to insufficient domain-specific knowledge, necessitating specialized models. Therefore, Small Language Models (SLMs) are increasingly favored for their low inference latency, cost-effectiveness, efficient development, and easy customization and adaptability. These models are particularly well-suited for resource-limited environments and domain knowledge acquisition, addressing LLMs' challenges and proving ideal for applications that require localized data handling for privacy, minimal inference latency for efficiency, and domain knowledge acquisition through lightweight fine-tuning. The rising demand for SLMs has spurred extensive research and development. However, a comprehensive survey investigating issues related to the definition, acquisition, application, enhancement, and reliability of SLM remains lacking, prompting us to conduct a detailed survey on these topics. The definition of SLMs varies widely, thus to standardize, we propose defining SLMs by their capability to perform specialized tasks and suitability for resource-constrained settings, setting boundaries based on the minimal size for emergent abilities and the maximum size sustainable under resource constraints. For other aspects, we provide a taxonomy of relevant models/methods and develop general frameworks for each category to enhance and utilize SLMs effectively.
title A Comprehensive Survey of Small Language Models in the Era of Large Language Models: Techniques, Enhancements, Applications, Collaboration with LLMs, and Trustworthiness
topic Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
68T50 (Primary) 68T07 (Secondary)
I.2.7
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.03350