Related papers: In-Context Learning of a Linear Transformer Block:…
Transformers have demonstrated remarkable in-context learning (ICL) capabilities. The strong ICL performance of transformers is commonly believed to arise from their ability to implicitly execute certain algorithms on the context, thereby…
Transformer-based models demonstrate a remarkable ability for in-context learning (ICL), where they can adapt to unseen tasks from a few prompt examples without parameter updates. Recent research has illuminated how Transformers perform…
In-context learning (ICL) of large language models has proven to be a surprisingly effective method of learning a new task from only a few demonstrative examples. In this paper, we study the efficacy of ICL from the viewpoint of statistical…
In-context learning (ICL), the remarkable ability to solve a task from only input exemplars, is often assumed to be a unique hallmark of Transformer models. By examining commonly employed synthetic ICL tasks, we demonstrate that multi-layer…
Large pretrained language models have shown surprising in-context learning (ICL) ability. With a few demonstration input-label pairs, they can predict the label for an unseen input without parameter updates. Despite the great success in…
In-context learning (ICL) is a cornerstone of large language model (LLM) functionality, yet its theoretical foundations remain elusive due to the complexity of transformer architectures. In particular, most existing work only theoretically…
We investigate the ability of transformers to perform in-context reinforcement learning (ICRL), where a model must infer and execute learning algorithms from trajectory data without parameter updates. We show that a linear self-attention…
Transformers exhibit In-Context Learning (ICL), where these models solve new tasks by using examples in the prompt without additional training. In our work, we identify and analyze two key components of ICL: (1) context-scaling, where model…
Recent research has shown that Transformers with linear attention are capable of in-context learning (ICL) by implementing a linear estimator through gradient descent steps. However, the existing results on the optimization landscape apply…
Large language models based on the Transformer architecture have demonstrated impressive capabilities to learn in context. However, existing theoretical studies on how this phenomenon arises are limited to the dynamics of a single layer of…
In-context learning (ICL) has shown impressive results in few-shot learning tasks, yet its underlying mechanism is still not fully understood. A recent line of work suggests that ICL performs gradient descent (GD)-based optimization…
The transformer architecture, which processes sequences of input tokens to produce outputs for query tokens, has revolutionized numerous areas of machine learning. A defining feature of transformers is their ability to perform previously…
Pretrained Transformers demonstrate remarkable in-context learning (ICL) capabilities, enabling them to adapt to new tasks from demonstrations without parameter updates. However, theoretical studies often rely on simplified architectures…
Transformers have a remarkable ability to learn and execute tasks based on examples provided within the input itself, without explicit prior training. It has been argued that this capability, known as in-context learning (ICL), is a…
This paper develops a finite-sample statistical theory for in-context learning (ICL), analyzed within a meta-learning framework that accommodates mixtures of diverse task types. We introduce a principled risk decomposition that separates…
Although transformers have demonstrated impressive capabilities for in-context learning (ICL) in practice, theoretical understanding of the underlying mechanism that allows transformers to perform ICL is still in its infancy. This work aims…
Recent works have empirically analyzed in-context learning and shown that transformers trained on synthetic linear regression tasks can learn to implement ridge regression, which is the Bayes-optimal predictor, given sufficient capacity…
Transformer models have become foundational across a wide range of scientific and engineering domains due to their strong empirical performance. A key capability underlying their success is in-context learning (ICL): when presented with a…
Pre-trained large language models based on Transformers have demonstrated remarkable in-context learning (ICL) abilities. With just a few demonstration examples, the models can implement new tasks without any parameter updates. However, it…
The intriguing in-context learning (ICL) abilities of deep Transformer models have lately garnered significant attention. By studying in-context linear regression on unimodal Gaussian data, recent empirical and theoretical works have argued…