Data Curation Matters: Model Collapse and Spurious Shift Performance Prediction from Training on Uncurated Text Embeddings

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Mattioli, Lucas, Hadichou, Youness Ait, Chaouche, Sabrina, Gonzalez, Martin
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Mattioli, Lucas
Hadichou, Youness Ait
Chaouche, Sabrina
Gonzalez, Martin
author_facet Mattioli, Lucas
Hadichou, Youness Ait
Chaouche, Sabrina
Gonzalez, Martin
contents Training models on uncurated Text Embeddings (TEs) derived from raw tabular data can lead to a severe failure mode known as model collapse, where predictions converge to a single class regardless of input. By comparing models trained with identical hyper-parameter configurations on both raw tabular data and their TE-derived counterparts, we find that collapse is a consistent failure mode in the latter setting. We introduce a set of metrics that capture the extent of model collapse, offering a new perspective on TE quality as a proxy for data curation. Our results reveal that TE alone does not effectively function as a curation layer - and that their quality significantly influences downstream learning. More insidiously, we observe that the presence of model collapse can yield artificially inflated and spurious Accuracy-on-the-Line correlation. These findings highlight the need for more nuanced curation and evaluation of embedding-based representations, particularly in out-of-distribution settings.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_17989
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Data Curation Matters: Model Collapse and Spurious Shift Performance Prediction from Training on Uncurated Text Embeddings
Mattioli, Lucas
Hadichou, Youness Ait
Chaouche, Sabrina
Gonzalez, Martin
Machine Learning
Training models on uncurated Text Embeddings (TEs) derived from raw tabular data can lead to a severe failure mode known as model collapse, where predictions converge to a single class regardless of input. By comparing models trained with identical hyper-parameter configurations on both raw tabular data and their TE-derived counterparts, we find that collapse is a consistent failure mode in the latter setting. We introduce a set of metrics that capture the extent of model collapse, offering a new perspective on TE quality as a proxy for data curation. Our results reveal that TE alone does not effectively function as a curation layer - and that their quality significantly influences downstream learning. More insidiously, we observe that the presence of model collapse can yield artificially inflated and spurious Accuracy-on-the-Line correlation. These findings highlight the need for more nuanced curation and evaluation of embedding-based representations, particularly in out-of-distribution settings.
title Data Curation Matters: Model Collapse and Spurious Shift Performance Prediction from Training on Uncurated Text Embeddings
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.17989