mSFT: Addressing Dataset Mixtures Overfitting Heterogeneously in Multi-task SFT

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Koh, Woosung, Jeon, Jeyoung, Song, Youngjin, Cheon, Yujin, Oh, Soowon, Choi, Jaehyeong, Yun, Se-Young
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2026
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author Koh, Woosung
Jeon, Jeyoung
Song, Youngjin
Cheon, Yujin
Oh, Soowon
Choi, Jaehyeong
Yun, Se-Young
author_facet Koh, Woosung
Jeon, Jeyoung
Song, Youngjin
Cheon, Yujin
Oh, Soowon
Choi, Jaehyeong
Yun, Se-Young
contents Current language model training commonly applies multi-task Supervised Fine-Tuning (SFT) using a homogeneous compute budget across all sub-datasets. This approach is fundamentally sub-optimal: heterogeneous learning dynamics cause faster-learning tasks to overfit early while slower ones remain under-fitted. To address this, we introduce mSFT, an iterative, overfitting-aware search algorithm for multi-task data mixtures. mSFT trains the model on an active mixture, identifies and excludes the earliest overfitting sub-dataset, and reverts to that specific optimal checkpoint before continuing. Extensive evaluations demonstrate that mSFT consistently outperforms 4 baselines across 10 benchmarks and 6 base models. Further analysis confirms mSFT maintains robust gains across diverse dataset sizes, task granularities, and is insensitive to its single new hyperparameter (compute budget). Notably, at low compute budget, mSFT can improve performance while lowering training FLOPs. Ultimately, mSFT establishes a practical overfitting-aware algorithm for multi-task SFT that maximizes the potential of models across diverse data mixtures.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_21606
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle mSFT: Addressing Dataset Mixtures Overfitting Heterogeneously in Multi-task SFT
Koh, Woosung
Jeon, Jeyoung
Song, Youngjin
Cheon, Yujin
Oh, Soowon
Choi, Jaehyeong
Yun, Se-Young
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Current language model training commonly applies multi-task Supervised Fine-Tuning (SFT) using a homogeneous compute budget across all sub-datasets. This approach is fundamentally sub-optimal: heterogeneous learning dynamics cause faster-learning tasks to overfit early while slower ones remain under-fitted. To address this, we introduce mSFT, an iterative, overfitting-aware search algorithm for multi-task data mixtures. mSFT trains the model on an active mixture, identifies and excludes the earliest overfitting sub-dataset, and reverts to that specific optimal checkpoint before continuing. Extensive evaluations demonstrate that mSFT consistently outperforms 4 baselines across 10 benchmarks and 6 base models. Further analysis confirms mSFT maintains robust gains across diverse dataset sizes, task granularities, and is insensitive to its single new hyperparameter (compute budget). Notably, at low compute budget, mSFT can improve performance while lowering training FLOPs. Ultimately, mSFT establishes a practical overfitting-aware algorithm for multi-task SFT that maximizes the potential of models across diverse data mixtures.
title mSFT: Addressing Dataset Mixtures Overfitting Heterogeneously in Multi-task SFT
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.21606