LGAIFeb 27, 2025

Large Language Models as Attribution Regularizers for Efficient Model Training

arXiv:2502.20268v3h-index: 12xAI
Originality Incremental advance
AI Analysis

This addresses the problem of efficient and interpretable model training for domains like tabular data, though it is incremental as it builds on existing regularization techniques.

The paper tackles the challenge of leveraging large language models' knowledge to train smaller, efficient models by introducing an attribution-matching regularization method, resulting in improved performance in few-shot learning scenarios with minimal computational overhead.

Large Language Models (LLMs) have demonstrated remarkable performance across diverse domains. However, effectively leveraging their vast knowledge for training smaller downstream models remains an open challenge, especially in domains like tabular data learning, where simpler models are often preferred due to interpretability and efficiency. In this paper, we introduce a novel yet straightforward method for incorporating LLM-generated global task feature attributions into the training process of smaller networks. Specifically, we propose an attribution-matching regularization term that aligns the training dynamics of the smaller model with the insights provided by the LLM. By doing so, our approach yields superior performance in few-shot learning scenarios. Notably, our method requires only black-box API access to the LLM, making it easy to integrate into existing training pipelines with minimal computational overhead. Furthermore, we demonstrate how this method can be used to address common issues in real-world datasets, such as skewness and bias. By integrating high-level knowledge from LLMs, our approach improves generalization, even when training data is limited or imbalanced. We validate its effectiveness through extensive experiments across multiple tasks, demonstrating improved learning efficiency and model robustness.

Code Implementations1 repo
Foundations

The foundational work for this paper's niche, ranked by how specifically the neighbourhood builds on it — not by global fame.

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