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Poster
in
Workshop: Workshop on Federated Learning in the Age of Foundation Models in Conjunction with NeurIPS 2023 (FL@FM-NeurIPS'23)

Beyond Parameter Averaging in Model Aggregation

Pol Garcia Recasens · Jordi Torres · Josep Lluís Berral · Søren Hauberg · Pablo Moreno-Muñoz

Keywords: [ model aggregation ] [ Fisher merging ] [ Self-supervised learning ]


Abstract:

The success of foundation models is strongly linked to scale, which has reinforced the interest in federated learning. With the prohibitive cost of training a large language model (LLM) in mind, little attention has been placed on reusing pre-trained models in collaborative training settings. Self-supervision has also played an important role in this success, but its emphasis has been primarily on data. This paper leverages Bayesian principles to bring self-supervision into the model aggregation toolbox. It introduces self-supervised Fisher merging, a framework that successfully merges models in parameter space without re-visiting data, opening a new door in model reusability. Experimental results build the foundation of our method on tractable linear models, and highlight its potential on aggregating neural networks.

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