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Main Authors: Wu, Jialin, Yang, Jian, Wang, Handing, Wen, Jiajun, Yu, Zhiyong
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.10943
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author Wu, Jialin
Yang, Jian
Wang, Handing
Wen, Jiajun
Yu, Zhiyong
author_facet Wu, Jialin
Yang, Jian
Wang, Handing
Wen, Jiajun
Yu, Zhiyong
contents Model merging combines expert models for multitask performance but faces challenges from parameter interference. This has sparked recent interest in controllable model merging, giving users the ability to explicitly balance performance trade-offs. Existing approaches employ a compile-then-query paradigm, performing a costly offline multi-objective optimization to enable fast, preference-aware model generation. This offline stage typically involves iterative search or dedicated training, with complexity that grows exponentially with the number of tasks. To overcome these limitations, we shift the perspective from parameter-space optimization to a direct correction of the model's final representation. Our approach models this correction as an optimal linear transformation, yielding a closed-form solution that replaces the entire offline optimization process with a single-step, architecture-agnostic computation. This solution directly incorporates user preferences, allowing a Pareto-optimal model to be generated on-the-fly with complexity that scales linearly with the number of tasks. Experimental results show our method generates a superior Pareto front with more precise preference alignment and drastically reduced computational cost.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_10943
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle From Parameter to Representation: A Closed-Form Approach for Controllable Model Merging
Wu, Jialin
Yang, Jian
Wang, Handing
Wen, Jiajun
Yu, Zhiyong
Machine Learning
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Model merging combines expert models for multitask performance but faces challenges from parameter interference. This has sparked recent interest in controllable model merging, giving users the ability to explicitly balance performance trade-offs. Existing approaches employ a compile-then-query paradigm, performing a costly offline multi-objective optimization to enable fast, preference-aware model generation. This offline stage typically involves iterative search or dedicated training, with complexity that grows exponentially with the number of tasks. To overcome these limitations, we shift the perspective from parameter-space optimization to a direct correction of the model's final representation. Our approach models this correction as an optimal linear transformation, yielding a closed-form solution that replaces the entire offline optimization process with a single-step, architecture-agnostic computation. This solution directly incorporates user preferences, allowing a Pareto-optimal model to be generated on-the-fly with complexity that scales linearly with the number of tasks. Experimental results show our method generates a superior Pareto front with more precise preference alignment and drastically reduced computational cost.
title From Parameter to Representation: A Closed-Form Approach for Controllable Model Merging
topic Machine Learning
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.10943