Unveiling Hidden Collaboration within Mixture-of-Experts in Large Language Models

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Tang, Yuanbo, Tang, Yan, Zhang, Naifan, Chen, Meixuan, Li, Yang
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Tang, Yuanbo
Tang, Yan
Zhang, Naifan
Chen, Meixuan
Li, Yang
author_facet Tang, Yuanbo
Tang, Yan
Zhang, Naifan
Chen, Meixuan
Li, Yang
contents Mixture-of-Experts based large language models (MoE LLMs) have shown significant promise in multitask adaptability by dynamically routing inputs to specialized experts. Despite their success, the collaborative mechanisms among experts are still not well understood, limiting both the interpretability and optimization of these models. In this paper, we focus on two critical issues: (1) identifying expert collaboration patterns, and (2) optimizing MoE LLMs through expert pruning. To address the first issue, we propose a hierarchical sparse dictionary learning (HSDL) method that uncovers the collaboration patterns among experts. For the second issue, we introduce the Contribution-Aware Expert Pruning (CAEP) algorithm, which effectively prunes low-contribution experts. Our extensive experiments demonstrate that expert collaboration patterns are closely linked to specific input types and exhibit semantic significance across various tasks. Moreover, pruning experiments show that our approach improves overall performance by 2.5\% on average, outperforming existing methods. These findings offer valuable insights into enhancing the efficiency and interpretability of MoE LLMs, offering a clearer understanding of expert interactions and improving model optimization.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_12359
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Unveiling Hidden Collaboration within Mixture-of-Experts in Large Language Models
Tang, Yuanbo
Tang, Yan
Zhang, Naifan
Chen, Meixuan
Li, Yang
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Mixture-of-Experts based large language models (MoE LLMs) have shown significant promise in multitask adaptability by dynamically routing inputs to specialized experts. Despite their success, the collaborative mechanisms among experts are still not well understood, limiting both the interpretability and optimization of these models. In this paper, we focus on two critical issues: (1) identifying expert collaboration patterns, and (2) optimizing MoE LLMs through expert pruning. To address the first issue, we propose a hierarchical sparse dictionary learning (HSDL) method that uncovers the collaboration patterns among experts. For the second issue, we introduce the Contribution-Aware Expert Pruning (CAEP) algorithm, which effectively prunes low-contribution experts. Our extensive experiments demonstrate that expert collaboration patterns are closely linked to specific input types and exhibit semantic significance across various tasks. Moreover, pruning experiments show that our approach improves overall performance by 2.5\% on average, outperforming existing methods. These findings offer valuable insights into enhancing the efficiency and interpretability of MoE LLMs, offering a clearer understanding of expert interactions and improving model optimization.
title Unveiling Hidden Collaboration within Mixture-of-Experts in Large Language Models
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.12359