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Fine-tuning Large Language Models (LLMs) typically involves either full fine-tuning, which updates all model parameters, or Parameter-Efficient Fine-Tuning (PEFT), which adjusts a small subset of parameters. However, both approaches have…
Diffusion large language models (dLLMs) are promising alternatives to autoregressive large language models (AR-LLMs), as they potentially allow higher inference throughput. Reinforcement learning (RL) is a crucial component for dLLMs to…
We propose the intermediate direct preference optimization (DPO) method to calculate the DPO loss at selected intermediate layers as an auxiliary loss for finetuning large language models (LLMs). The conventional DPO method fine-tunes a…
Zeroth-order (ZO) method has been shown to be a powerful method for solving the optimization problem where explicit expression of the gradients is difficult or infeasible to obtain. Recently, due to the practical value of the constrained…
Zeroth-order (ZO) optimization is widely used to handle challenging tasks, such as query-based black-box adversarial attacks and reinforcement learning. Various attempts have been made to integrate prior information into the gradient…
First-order optimization methods, such as SGD and Adam, are widely used for training large-scale deep neural networks due to their computational efficiency and robust performance. However, relying solely on gradient information, these…
The widespread application of large language models (LLMs) raises increasing demands on ensuring safety or imposing constraints, such as reducing harmful content and adhering to predefined rules. While there have been several works studying…
As distributed optimization scales to meet the demands of Large Language Model (LLM) training, hardware failures become increasingly non-negligible. Existing fault-tolerant training methods often introduce significant computational or…
Rank-based zeroth-order (ZO) optimization -- which relies only on the ordering of function evaluations -- offers strong robustness to noise and monotone transformations, and underlies many successful algorithms such as CMA-ES, natural…
In this letter, we first propose a \underline{Z}eroth-\underline{O}rder c\underline{O}ordinate \underline{M}ethod~(ZOOM) to solve the stochastic optimization problem over a decentralized network with only zeroth-order~(ZO) oracle feedback…
The development of large-scale foundation models, particularly Large Language Models (LLMs), is constrained by significant computational and memory bottlenecks. These challenges elevate throughput optimization from a mere engineering task…
Safety alignment for large language models (LLMs) aims to reduce harmful or unsafe behavior while preserving general utility. However, recent findings reveal that alignment effects can be fragile: lightweight post-alignment manipulations,…
Federated fine-tuning (FFT) of large language models (LLMs) has recently emerged as a promising solution to enable domain-specific adaptation while preserving data privacy. Despite its benefits, FFT on resource-constrained clients relies on…
The last year has witnessed the rapid progress of large language models (LLMs) across diverse domains. Among them, CodeLLMs have garnered particular attention because they can not only assist in completing various programming tasks but also…
Instruction-following is particularly crucial for large language models (LLMs) to support diverse user requests. While existing work has made progress in aligning LLMs with human preferences, evaluating their capabilities on instruction…
Aligning the output of Large Language Models (LLMs) with human preferences (e.g., by means of reinforcement learning with human feedback, or RLHF) is essential for ensuring their effectiveness in real-world scenarios. Despite significant…
Combinatorial optimization (CO) problems, central to decision-making scenarios like logistics and manufacturing, are traditionally solved using problem-specific algorithms requiring significant domain expertise. While large language models…
We consider the problem of minimizing a high-dimensional objective function, which may include a regularization term, using (possibly noisy) evaluations of the function. Such optimization is also called derivative-free, zeroth-order, or…
Recent research explores optimization using large language models (LLMs) by either iteratively seeking next-step solutions from LLMs or directly prompting LLMs for an optimizer. However, these approaches exhibit inherent limitations,…
Fine-tuning large language models (LLMs) to align with human preferences has driven the success of systems such as Gemini and ChatGPT. However, approaches like Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) remain computationally…