Retention analysis of edited knowledge after fine-tuning

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Wen, Fufang, Zhang, Shichang
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Wen, Fufang
Zhang, Shichang
author_facet Wen, Fufang
Zhang, Shichang
contents Large language models (LLMs) store vast amounts of knowledge, which often requires updates to correct factual errors, incorporate newly acquired information, or adapt model behavior. Model editing methods have emerged as efficient solutions for such updates, offering localized and precise knowledge modification at significantly lower computational cost than continual training. In parallel, LLMs are frequently fine-tuned for a wide range of downstream tasks. However, the effect of fine-tuning on previously edited knowledge remains poorly understood. In this work, we systematically investigate how different fine-tuning objectives interact with various model editing techniques. Our findings show that edited knowledge is substantially more susceptible to forgetting during fine-tuning than intrinsic knowledge acquired through pre-training. This analysis highlights a key limitation of current editing approaches and suggests that evaluating edit robustness under downstream fine-tuning is critical for their practical deployment. We further find that knowledge retention can be significantly improved by either augmenting edit knowledge with paraphrases or by freezing layers associated with edited content in fine-tuning stage, offering insight for developing more robust editing algorithms.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_14198
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Retention analysis of edited knowledge after fine-tuning
Wen, Fufang
Zhang, Shichang
Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
Large language models (LLMs) store vast amounts of knowledge, which often requires updates to correct factual errors, incorporate newly acquired information, or adapt model behavior. Model editing methods have emerged as efficient solutions for such updates, offering localized and precise knowledge modification at significantly lower computational cost than continual training. In parallel, LLMs are frequently fine-tuned for a wide range of downstream tasks. However, the effect of fine-tuning on previously edited knowledge remains poorly understood. In this work, we systematically investigate how different fine-tuning objectives interact with various model editing techniques. Our findings show that edited knowledge is substantially more susceptible to forgetting during fine-tuning than intrinsic knowledge acquired through pre-training. This analysis highlights a key limitation of current editing approaches and suggests that evaluating edit robustness under downstream fine-tuning is critical for their practical deployment. We further find that knowledge retention can be significantly improved by either augmenting edit knowledge with paraphrases or by freezing layers associated with edited content in fine-tuning stage, offering insight for developing more robust editing algorithms.
title Retention analysis of edited knowledge after fine-tuning
topic Computation and Language
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.14198