Adapter Networks for Large Language Models
Adapter Networks for Large Language Models Adapter networks add small trainable modules to frozen pre-trained models enabling efficient task adaptation with minimal parameters, revolutionizing transfer learning for large language models. The engineering challenge involves designing optimal adapter architectures, determining insertion points in base models, managing multiple adapters for different tasks, implementing efficient training and inference, and balancing adaptation capacity with parameter efficiency. Adapter Networks for Large Language Models Explained for Beginners - Adapter networks are like adding specialized tools to a Swiss Army knife - the main knife (pre-trained model) stays unchanged, but you clip on specific attachments (adapters) for different tasks. Instead of buying a new knife for each job or modifying the original blade, you add small, removable tools that work with the existing knife, making it versatile without rebuilding everything from scratch. What Problem Do Adapters Solve? Adapters address the computational and storage challenges of fine-tuning large models for multiple tasks. Full fine-tuning cost: storing separate billion-parameter models per task becomes prohibitive. Catastrophic forgetting: fine-tuning degrades performance on other tasks without careful management. Limited resources: full fine-tuning requires substantial GPU memory many lack. Multi-task serving: switching between tasks requires loading different models. Rapid experimentation: testing ideas needs quick, efficient adaptation methods. Version control: managing many model variants becomes complex. How Do Adapter Architectures Work? Adapter modules follow bottleneck architecture with down-projection, non-linearity, and up-projection. Bottleneck design: project from d to r dimensions where r << d, typically d/16. Non-linear activation: ReLU or GELU between projections adding expressiveness. Residual connection: adding adapter output to original preserving information flow. Parameter efficiency: two matrices W_down ∈ R^(r×d), W_up ∈ R^(d×r) totaling 2rd parameters. Skip connection scaling: sometimes adding learned scalar controlling contribution. Initialization: near-identity ensuring minimal initial modification.