This paper presents a Domain-Inspired Sharpness-Aware Minimization (DISAM) algorithm for optimization under domain shifts. It is motivated by the inconsistent convergence degree of SAM across different domains, which induces optimization bias towards certain domains and thus impairs the overall convergence. To address this issue, we consider the domain-level convergence consistency in the sharpness estimation to prevent the overwhelming (deficient) perturbations for less (well) optimized domains. Specifically, DISAM introduces the constraint of minimizing variance in the domain loss, which allows the elastic gradient calibration in perturbation generation: when one domain is optimized above the averaging level \textit{w.r.t.} loss, the gradient perturbation towards that domain will be weakened automatically, and vice versa. Under this mechanism, we theoretically show that DISAM can achieve faster overall convergence and improved generalization in principle when inconsistent convergence emerges. Extensive experiments on various domain generalization benchmarks show the superiority of DISAM over a range of state-of-the-art methods. Furthermore, we show the superior efficiency of DISAM in parameter-efficient fine-tuning combined with the pretraining models. The source code is released at //github.com/MediaBrain-SJTU/DISAM.
Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models (DDPMs) exhibit remarkable capabilities in image generation, with studies suggesting that they can generalize by composing latent factors learned from the training data. In this work, we go further and study DDPMs trained on strictly separate subsets of the data distribution with large gaps on the support of the latent factors. We show that such a model can effectively generate images in the unexplored, intermediate regions of the distribution. For instance, when trained on clearly smiling and non-smiling faces, we demonstrate a sampling procedure which can generate slightly smiling faces without reference images (zero-shot interpolation). We replicate these findings for other attributes as well as other datasets. Our code is available at //github.com/jdeschena/ddpm-zero-shot-interpolation.
Large Language Models (LLMs) have demonstrated impressive zero shot performance on a wide range of NLP tasks, demonstrating the ability to reason and apply commonsense. A relevant application is to use them for creating high quality synthetic datasets for downstream tasks. In this work, we probe whether GPT-4 can be used to augment existing extractive reading comprehension datasets. Automating data annotation processes has the potential to save large amounts of time, money and effort that goes into manually labelling datasets. In this paper, we evaluate the performance of GPT-4 as a replacement for human annotators for low resource reading comprehension tasks, by comparing performance after fine tuning, and the cost associated with annotation. This work serves to be the first analysis of LLMs as synthetic data augmenters for QA systems, highlighting the unique opportunities and challenges. Additionally, we release augmented versions of low resource datasets, that will allow the research community to create further benchmarks for evaluation of generated datasets.
We present the Differentially Private Blockchain-Based Vertical Federal Learning (DP-BBVFL) algorithm that provides verifiability and privacy guarantees for decentralized applications. DP-BBVFL uses a smart contract to aggregate the feature representations, i.e., the embeddings, from clients transparently. We apply local differential privacy to provide privacy for embeddings stored on a blockchain, hence protecting the original data. We provide the first prototype application of differential privacy with blockchain for vertical federated learning. Our experiments with medical data show that DP-BBVFL achieves high accuracy with a tradeoff in training time due to on-chain aggregation. This innovative fusion of differential privacy and blockchain technology in DP-BBVFL could herald a new era of collaborative and trustworthy machine learning applications across several decentralized application domains.
The all-pairs shortest distances (APSD) with differential privacy (DP) problem takes as input an undirected, weighted graph $G = (V,E, \mathbf{w})$ and outputs a private estimate of the shortest distances in $G$ between all pairs of vertices. In this paper, we present a simple $\widetilde{O}(n^{1/3}/\varepsilon)$-accurate algorithm to solve APSD with $\varepsilon$-DP, which reduces to $\widetilde{O}(n^{1/4}/\varepsilon)$ in the $(\varepsilon, \delta)$-DP setting, where $n = |V|$. Our algorithm greatly improves upon the error of prior algorithms, namely $\widetilde{O}(n^{2/3}/\varepsilon)$ and $\widetilde{O}(\sqrt{n}/\varepsilon)$ in the two respective settings, and is the first to be optimal up to a polylogarithmic factor, based on a lower bound of $\widetilde{\Omega}(n^{1/4})$. In the case where a multiplicative approximation is allowed, we give two different constructions of algorithms with reduced additive error. Our first construction allows a multiplicative approximation of $O(k\log{\log{n}})$ and has additive error $\widetilde{O}(k\cdot n^{1/k}/\varepsilon)$ in the $\varepsilon$-DP case and $\widetilde{O}(\sqrt{k}\cdot n^{1/(2k)}/\varepsilon)$ in the $(\varepsilon, \delta)$-DP case. Our second construction allows multiplicative approximation $2k-1$ and has the same asymptotic additive error as the first construction. Both constructions significantly improve upon the currently best-known additive error of, $\widetilde{O}(k\cdot n^{1/2 + 1/(4k+2)}/\varepsilon)$ and $\widetilde{O}(k\cdot n^{1/3 + 2/(9k+3)}/\varepsilon)$, respectively. Our algorithms are straightforward and work by decomposing a graph into a set of spanning trees, and applying a key observation that we can privately release APSD in trees with $O(\text{polylog}(n))$ error.
Prior research has enhanced the ability of Large Language Models (LLMs) to solve logic puzzles using techniques such as chain-of-thought prompting or introducing a symbolic representation. These frameworks are still usually insufficient to solve complicated logical problems, such as Zebra puzzles, due to the inherent complexity of translating natural language clues into logical statements. We introduce a multi-agent system, ZPS, that integrates LLMs with an off the shelf theorem prover. This system tackles the complex puzzle-solving task by breaking down the problem into smaller, manageable parts, generating SMT (Satisfiability Modulo Theories) code to solve them with a theorem prover, and using feedback between the agents to repeatedly improve their answers. We also introduce an automated grid puzzle grader to assess the correctness of our puzzle solutions and show that the automated grader is reliable by evaluating it in a user-study. Our approach shows improvement in all three LLMs we tested, with GPT-4 showing 166% improvement in the number of fully correct solutions.
Extracting multiple relations from text sentences is still a challenge for current Open Relation Extraction (Open RE) tasks. In this paper, we develop several Open RE models based on the bidirectional LSTM-CRF (BiLSTM-CRF) neural network and different contextualized word embedding methods. We also propose a new tagging scheme to solve overlapping problems and enhance models' performance. From the evaluation results and comparisons between models, we select the best combination of tagging scheme, word embedder, and BiLSTM-CRF network to achieve an Open RE model with a remarkable extracting ability on multiple-relation sentences.
The reward model for Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) has proven effective in fine-tuning Large Language Models (LLMs). Notably, collecting human feedback for RLHF can be resource-intensive and lead to scalability issues for LLMs and complex tasks. Our proposed framework Proto-RM leverages prototypical networks to enhance reward models under limited human feedback. By enabling stable and reliable structural learning from fewer samples, Proto-RM significantly enhances LLMs' adaptability and accuracy in interpreting human preferences. Extensive experiments on various datasets demonstrate that Proto-RM significantly improves the performance of reward models and LLMs in human feedback tasks, achieving comparable and usually better results than traditional methods, while requiring significantly less data. in data-limited scenarios. This research offers a promising direction for enhancing the efficiency of reward models and optimizing the fine-tuning of language models under restricted feedback conditions.
Large Language Models (LLMs) demonstrate remarkable capabilities across diverse applications. However, concerns regarding their security, particularly the vulnerability to jailbreak attacks, persist. Drawing inspiration from adversarial training in deep learning and LLM agent learning processes, we introduce the In-Context Adversarial Game (ICAG) for defending against jailbreaks without the need for fine-tuning. ICAG leverages agent learning to conduct an adversarial game, aiming to dynamically extend knowledge to defend against jailbreaks. Unlike traditional methods that rely on static datasets, ICAG employs an iterative process to enhance both the defense and attack agents. This continuous improvement process strengthens defenses against newly generated jailbreak prompts. Our empirical studies affirm ICAG's efficacy, where LLMs safeguarded by ICAG exhibit significantly reduced jailbreak success rates across various attack scenarios. Moreover, ICAG demonstrates remarkable transferability to other LLMs, indicating its potential as a versatile defense mechanism.
Cross-Domain Recommendation (CDR) seeks to utilize knowledge from different domains to alleviate the problem of data sparsity in the target recommendation domain, and it has been gaining more attention in recent years. Although there have been notable advancements in this area, most current methods represent users and items in Euclidean space, which is not ideal for handling long-tail distributed data in recommendation systems. Additionally, adding data from other domains can worsen the long-tail characteristics of the entire dataset, making it harder to train CDR models effectively. Recent studies have shown that hyperbolic methods are particularly suitable for modeling long-tail distributions, which has led us to explore hyperbolic representations for users and items in CDR scenarios. However, due to the distinct characteristics of the different domains, applying hyperbolic representation learning to CDR tasks is quite challenging. In this paper, we introduce a new framework called Hyperbolic Contrastive Learning (HCTS), designed to capture the unique features of each domain while enabling efficient knowledge transfer between domains. We achieve this by embedding users and items from each domain separately and mapping them onto distinct hyperbolic manifolds with adjustable curvatures for prediction. To improve the representations of users and items in the target domain, we develop a hyperbolic contrastive learning module for knowledge transfer. Extensive experiments on real-world datasets demonstrate that hyperbolic manifolds are a promising alternative to Euclidean space for CDR tasks.
Knowledge graph (KG) embeddings learn low-dimensional representations of entities and relations to predict missing facts. KGs often exhibit hierarchical and logical patterns which must be preserved in the embedding space. For hierarchical data, hyperbolic embedding methods have shown promise for high-fidelity and parsimonious representations. However, existing hyperbolic embedding methods do not account for the rich logical patterns in KGs. In this work, we introduce a class of hyperbolic KG embedding models that simultaneously capture hierarchical and logical patterns. Our approach combines hyperbolic reflections and rotations with attention to model complex relational patterns. Experimental results on standard KG benchmarks show that our method improves over previous Euclidean- and hyperbolic-based efforts by up to 6.1% in mean reciprocal rank (MRR) in low dimensions. Furthermore, we observe that different geometric transformations capture different types of relations while attention-based transformations generalize to multiple relations. In high dimensions, our approach yields new state-of-the-art MRRs of 49.6% on WN18RR and 57.7% on YAGO3-10.