Multi-Task Instruction Tuning of LLaMa for Specific Scenarios: A Preliminary Study on Writing Assistance

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2305.13225v2
• Date: Mon, 9 Oct 2023 07:55:26 GMT
• Title: Multi-Task Instruction Tuning of LLaMa for Specific Scenarios: A Preliminary Study on Writing Assistance
• Authors: Yue Zhang and Leyang Cui and Deng Cai and Xinting Huang and Tao Fang and Wei Bi
• Abstract summary: Small foundational models can display remarkable proficiency in tackling diverse tasks when fine-tuned using instruction-driven data. In this work, we investigate a practical problem setting where the primary focus is on one or a few particular tasks rather than general-purpose instruction following. Experimental results show that fine-tuning LLaMA on writing instruction data significantly improves its ability on writing tasks.
• Score: 60.40541387785977
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/
• Abstract: Proprietary Large Language Models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, have garnered significant attention due to their exceptional capabilities in handling a diverse range of tasks. Recent studies demonstrate that open-sourced smaller foundational models, such as 7B-size LLaMA, can also display remarkable proficiency in tackling diverse tasks when fine-tuned using instruction-driven data. In this work, we investigate a practical problem setting where the primary focus is on one or a few particular tasks rather than general-purpose instruction following, and explore whether LLMs can be beneficial and further improved for such targeted scenarios. We choose the writing-assistant scenario as the testbed, which includes seven writing tasks. We collect training data for these tasks, reframe them in an instruction-following format, and subsequently refine the LLM, specifically LLaMA, via instruction tuning. Experimental results show that fine-tuning LLaMA on writing instruction data significantly improves its ability on writing tasks. We also conduct more experiments and analyses to offer insights for future work on effectively fine-tuning LLaMA for specific scenarios. Finally, we initiate a discussion regarding the necessity of employing LLMs for only one targeted task, taking into account the efforts required for tuning and the resources consumed during deployment.

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