Smaller Language Models Are Better Instruction Evolvers

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Main Authors: Hui, Tingfeng, Zhao, Lulu, Dong, Guanting, Zhang, Yaqi, Zhou, Hua, Su, Sen
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Hui, Tingfeng
Zhao, Lulu
Dong, Guanting
Zhang, Yaqi
Zhou, Hua
Su, Sen
author_facet Hui, Tingfeng
Zhao, Lulu
Dong, Guanting
Zhang, Yaqi
Zhou, Hua
Su, Sen
contents Instruction tuning has been widely used to unleash the complete potential of large language models. Notably, complex and diverse instructions are of significant importance as they can effectively align models with various downstream tasks. However, current approaches to constructing large-scale instructions predominantly favour powerful models such as GPT-4 or those with over 70 billion parameters, under the empirical presumption that such larger language models (LLMs) inherently possess enhanced capabilities. In this study, we question this prevalent assumption and conduct an in-depth exploration into the potential of smaller language models (SLMs) in the context of instruction evolution. Extensive experiments across three scenarios of instruction evolution reveal that smaller language models (SLMs) can synthesize more effective instructions than LLMs. Further analysis demonstrates that SLMs possess a broader output space during instruction evolution, resulting in more complex and diverse variants. We also observe that the existing metrics fail to focus on the impact of the instructions. Thus, we propose Instruction Complex-Aware IFD (IC-IFD), which introduces instruction complexity in the original IFD score to evaluate the effectiveness of instruction data more accurately. Our source code is available at: \href{https://github.com/HypherX/Evolution-Analysis}{https://github.com/HypherX/Evolution-Analysis}
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2412_11231
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Smaller Language Models Are Better Instruction Evolvers
Hui, Tingfeng
Zhao, Lulu
Dong, Guanting
Zhang, Yaqi
Zhou, Hua
Su, Sen
Computation and Language
Instruction tuning has been widely used to unleash the complete potential of large language models. Notably, complex and diverse instructions are of significant importance as they can effectively align models with various downstream tasks. However, current approaches to constructing large-scale instructions predominantly favour powerful models such as GPT-4 or those with over 70 billion parameters, under the empirical presumption that such larger language models (LLMs) inherently possess enhanced capabilities. In this study, we question this prevalent assumption and conduct an in-depth exploration into the potential of smaller language models (SLMs) in the context of instruction evolution. Extensive experiments across three scenarios of instruction evolution reveal that smaller language models (SLMs) can synthesize more effective instructions than LLMs. Further analysis demonstrates that SLMs possess a broader output space during instruction evolution, resulting in more complex and diverse variants. We also observe that the existing metrics fail to focus on the impact of the instructions. Thus, we propose Instruction Complex-Aware IFD (IC-IFD), which introduces instruction complexity in the original IFD score to evaluate the effectiveness of instruction data more accurately. Our source code is available at: \href{https://github.com/HypherX/Evolution-Analysis}{https://github.com/HypherX/Evolution-Analysis}
title Smaller Language Models Are Better Instruction Evolvers
topic Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.11231