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arXiv · 2211.00107

Where to start? Analyzing the potential value of intermediate models

Leshem Choshen·Elad Venezian·Shachar Don-Yehia·Noam Slonim·Yoav Katz
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Abstract

Previous studies observed that finetuned models may be better base models than the vanilla pretrained model. Such a model, finetuned on some source dataset, may provide a better starting point for a new finetuning process on a desired target dataset. Here, we perform a systematic analysis of this intertraining scheme, over a wide range of English classification tasks. Surprisingly, our analysis suggests that the potential intertraining gain can be analyzed independently for the target dataset under consideration, and for a base model being considered as a starting point. This is in contrast to current perception that the alignment between the target dataset and the source dataset used to generate the base model is a major factor in determining intertraining success. We analyze different aspects that contribute to each. Furthermore, we leverage our analysis to propose a practical and efficient approach to determine if and how to select a base model in real-world settings. Last, we release an updating ranking of best models in the HuggingFace hub per architecture https://ibm.github.io/model-recycling/.

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Leshem Choshen, Elad Venezian, Shachar Don-Yehia, Noam Slonim, Yoav Katz. 2022-11-10. Where to start? Analyzing the potential value of intermediate models. https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.00107

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