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Hauptverfasser: Yi, Xinhao, Lever, Jake, Bryson, Kevin, Meng, Zaiqiao
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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Online-Zugang:https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.10421
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author Yi, Xinhao
Lever, Jake
Bryson, Kevin
Meng, Zaiqiao
author_facet Yi, Xinhao
Lever, Jake
Bryson, Kevin
Meng, Zaiqiao
contents Knowledge editing has emerged as an effective approach for updating large language models (LLMs) by modifying their internal knowledge. However, their application to the biomedical domain faces unique challenges due to the long-tailed distribution of biomedical knowledge, where rare and infrequent information is prevalent. In this paper, we conduct the first comprehensive study to investigate the effectiveness of knowledge editing methods for editing long-tail biomedical knowledge. Our results indicate that, while existing editing methods can enhance LLMs' performance on long-tail biomedical knowledge, their performance on long-tail knowledge remains inferior to that on high-frequency popular knowledge, even after editing. Our further analysis reveals that long-tail biomedical knowledge contains a significant amount of one-to-many knowledge, where one subject and relation link to multiple objects. This high prevalence of one-to-many knowledge limits the effectiveness of knowledge editing in improving LLMs' understanding of long-tail biomedical knowledge, highlighting the need for tailored strategies to bridge this performance gap.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_10421
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Can We Edit LLMs for Long-Tail Biomedical Knowledge?
Yi, Xinhao
Lever, Jake
Bryson, Kevin
Meng, Zaiqiao
Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
Knowledge editing has emerged as an effective approach for updating large language models (LLMs) by modifying their internal knowledge. However, their application to the biomedical domain faces unique challenges due to the long-tailed distribution of biomedical knowledge, where rare and infrequent information is prevalent. In this paper, we conduct the first comprehensive study to investigate the effectiveness of knowledge editing methods for editing long-tail biomedical knowledge. Our results indicate that, while existing editing methods can enhance LLMs' performance on long-tail biomedical knowledge, their performance on long-tail knowledge remains inferior to that on high-frequency popular knowledge, even after editing. Our further analysis reveals that long-tail biomedical knowledge contains a significant amount of one-to-many knowledge, where one subject and relation link to multiple objects. This high prevalence of one-to-many knowledge limits the effectiveness of knowledge editing in improving LLMs' understanding of long-tail biomedical knowledge, highlighting the need for tailored strategies to bridge this performance gap.
title Can We Edit LLMs for Long-Tail Biomedical Knowledge?
topic Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.10421