@inproceedings{d-k-etal-2024-fisher,
    title = "Fisher Mask Nodes for Language Model Merging",
    author = "D K, Thennal  and
      Nathan, Ganesh  and
      M S, Suchithra",
    editor = "Calzolari, Nicoletta  and
      Kan, Min-Yen  and
      Hoste, Veronique  and
      Lenci, Alessandro  and
      Sakti, Sakriani  and
      Xue, Nianwen",
    booktitle = "Proceedings of the 2024 Joint International Conference on Computational Linguistics, Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC-COLING 2024)",
    month = may,
    year = "2024",
    address = "Torino, Italia",
    publisher = "ELRA and ICCL",
    url = "https://aclanthology.org/2024.lrec-main.647",
    pages = "7349--7355",
    abstract = "Fine-tuning pre-trained models provides significant advantages in downstream performance. The ubiquitous nature of pre-trained models such as BERT and its derivatives in natural language processing has also led to a proliferation of task-specific fine-tuned models. As these models typically only perform one task well, additional training or ensembling is required in multi-task scenarios. The growing field of model merging provides a solution, dealing with the challenge of combining multiple task-specific models into a single multi-task model. In this study, we introduce a novel model merging method for Transformers, combining insights from previous work in Fisher-weighted averaging and the use of Fisher information in model pruning. Utilizing the Fisher information of mask nodes within the Transformer architecture, we devise a computationally efficient weighted-averaging scheme. Our method exhibits a regular and significant performance increase across various models in the BERT family, outperforming full-scale Fisher-weighted averaging in a fraction of the computational cost, with baseline performance improvements of up to +6.5 and a speedup between 57.4x and 321.7x across models. Our results prove the potential of our method in current multi-task learning environments and suggest its scalability and adaptability to new model architectures and learning scenarios.",
}

Fine-tuning pre-trained models provides significant advantages in downstream performance. The ubiquitous nature of pre-trained models such as BERT and its derivatives in natural language processing has also led to a proliferation of task-specific fine-tuned models. As these models typically only perform one task well, additional training or ensembling is required in multi-task scenarios. The growing field of model merging provides a solution, dealing with the challenge of combining multiple task-specific models into a single multi-task model. In this study, we introduce a novel model merging method for Transformers, combining insights from previous work in Fisher-weighted averaging and the use of Fisher information in model pruning. Utilizing the Fisher information of mask nodes within the Transformer architecture, we devise a computationally efficient weighted-averaging scheme. Our method exhibits a regular and significant performance increase across various models in the BERT family, outperforming full-scale Fisher-weighted averaging in a fraction of the computational cost, with baseline performance improvements of up to +6.5 and a speedup between 57.4x and 321.7x across models. Our results prove the potential of our method in current multi-task learning environments and suggest its scalability and adaptability to new model architectures and learning scenarios.
D K, Thennal Nathan, Ganesh M S, Suchithra
Fisher Mask Nodes for Language Model Merging