Podcast Summary
Tengu Ma's research: Tengu Ma, a Stanford professor and Voyage CEO, researches improving efficiency of training large language models and enhancing their reasoning abilities. His optimizer Sofia can train models up to 2x faster.
Tengu Ma, a computer science assistant professor at Stanford and the CEO of Voyage, has a diverse research agenda that spans from theoretical deep learning to practical applications such as large language models and optimizers. His work focuses on improving the efficiency of training large language models and enhancing their reasoning abilities, as he believes these areas will become increasingly important due to the limited data and compute resources. Ma's research includes early work on matrix completion optimization, sentence embeddings, transformers, and contrastive learning. Recently, he and his team developed the optimizer Sofia, which can improve the training efficiency of large language models by up to 2x. Ma's entrepreneurial spirit led him to start a company last year while on leave from Stanford, and his work has already shown significant impact, with Facebook reporting a 1.6x improvement in training efficiency on a large scale.
AI commercialization: The maturity of AI and machine learning technologies, combined with the ease and affordability of implementation, make this an optimal time for commercialization. Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) systems are being utilized to improve the quality of retrieval systems and reduce hallucination rates, leading to more accurate and contextually relevant AI applications in industry.
We are currently witnessing a maturing of technologies, particularly in the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, making this an opportune time for commercialization. Seven years ago, applying AI to industry involved a complex process with multiple steps, but now, with the rise of foundation models, the process has been simplified significantly. Companies like Voyage are focusing on improving the quality of retrieval systems, as this is currently identified as a bottleneck in implementing AI in industry. Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) systems are being utilized to address this issue. These systems involve a retrieval step, where relevant information is retrieved and vectorized, followed by a generation step where a large language model uses this information to generate accurate and relevant responses. By reducing the hallucination rate, RAG systems are able to provide more accurate and contextually relevant answers, improving the overall effectiveness of AI applications in industry. The ease and affordability of implementing AI in industry, combined with the maturity of the underlying technologies, make this an ideal time for commercialization.
RAG architecture: RAG architecture converts data into vectors and stores them in a vector database for efficient handling and semantic-based search. It's a cost-effective solution compared to long context transformers, which are currently expensive due to memory requirements.
RAG (Reconstructed Abstract Graph) architecture is an emerging technology that allows for efficient handling and search of various types of data, including documents, videos, and code, by converting them into vectors and storing them in a vector database. This approach enables semantic-based search and can be applied to various industries such as finance, legal, chemistry, and individual use cases. RAG is considered easier to implement than fine-tuning and is debated against alternative architectures like agent chaining and long context transformers. While long context transformers have the potential to process vast amounts of data, they are currently expensive due to the need to save all activations or intermediate computations in memory, making RAG a more practical and cost-effective solution in the near term. The RAG architecture is relatively new and has gained popularity in recent years, but there is ongoing debate about its necessity for working with proprietary data.
Rack vs LLMs: Advancements in technology and increasing data sizes make cost-effective and efficient Rack a more viable solution for LLMs than long context transformers, with potential long-term memory management through RAG.
The use of Rack, a more cost-efficient and hierarchical system, is predicted to become more prevalent than long context transformers due to advancements in technology and the increasing size of data sources for Large Language Models (LLMs). The discussion also touched upon the idea of context as short-term memory and long-term memory, with RAG (Rack's embedded models) potentially managing the long-term memory for LLMs. The cost difference between managing a 1,000,000 token context window versus a 100,000,000 token context window is significant, with the latter being 100 times more expensive. For many companies, this cost difference is unacceptable, making it essential to find more cost-effective solutions like Rack. Moreover, agent chaining and using LLMs to manage data is an emerging area of research. The discussion emphasized the importance of efficiency, both from a cost perspective and in terms of hallucination management, which further supports the use of Rack and its hierarchical system. In essence, the advancements in technology and the increasing size of data sources necessitate a shift towards more cost-effective and efficient solutions like Rack. The hierarchical system allows for a more manageable and efficient approach to processing large amounts of data, making it a promising solution for the future of LLMs.
Agent training vs RAG systems: Agent training and RAG systems serve different purposes in managing knowledge systems. Agent training involves a multi-step system with large and small models, while RAG systems focus on iterative retrieval. Improving these systems involves enhancing large language models, prompting, and retrieval, with heavy data-driven training best suited for companies.
Agent training and Retrieval-as-a-Service (RAG) systems are orthogonal approaches in the context of managing knowledge systems. While both involve the use of embedding models, large language models, and iterative retrieval, they serve different purposes. Agent training can be seen as a multi-step, retrieval-augmented system where some parts are managed by large language models, some by small models, and some by embedding models. The motivation for agent chaining is similar to RAG in terms of efficiency, but managing a large knowledge system with a very large language model can lead to inefficiencies, making smaller models more suitable. Another perspective is the debate between iterative retrieval and retrieving all at once. Iterative retrieval is beneficial due to the current limitations of embedding models, but in the long run, as models become more clever, fewer rounds of retrieval may be necessary. Improving a RAG system involves enhancing the large language model (LLM), prompting, and retrieval. Improving the LLM requires heavy data-driven training and fine-tuning for specific use cases, which is a task best suited for companies rather than end-users. The long-term vision is that software engineering layers on top of networks will become less necessary as networks become more clever.
Long context embedding models: Advanced long context embedding models can decrease the need for data truncation and text conversion for text-based models, significantly improving performance in specific domains, and reducing latency through smaller embedding dimensions.
As context windows become longer and more advanced long context embedding models emerge, the need for data truncation and converting data into text for text-based models will decrease. This is because these advanced models will be able to understand and process longer contexts effectively. Additionally, fine-tuning and domain-specific embedding models can significantly improve performance in specific domains. This is important because the number of parameters in embedding models is limited, and customizing models to specific domains allows for the efficient use of these parameters. The improvements in performance can range from 5% to over 20%, depending on the domain and the amount of data available. For example, in the code domain, where deep understanding is required, significant improvements of up to 20% have been seen. In contrast, in the legal domain, where the baseline performance is higher, improvements of 5% to 15% have been observed. It's important to note that the latency cost comes not only from the search system processing the query but also from the query being translated into an embedding and compared to the embeddings of the knowledge base. The dimension of the vectors produced for the embeddings also affects the latency for vector-based search. Smaller dimensions result in faster search times. Voyage, for instance, produces embeddings with dimensions that are 3x to 4x smaller than some competitors.
RAG systems improvements: Balancing efficiency and domain-specific improvements in RAG systems involves using efficient embedding models and fine-tuning on proprietary data. Companies can invest in these components early on and simplify RAG systems as LLMs improve.
Creating effective Relevance and Answering (RAG) systems involves a balance between using efficient embedding models with a limited number of parameters and dimensions, and fine-tuning on proprietary data for domain-specific improvements. The degree of improvement varies depending on the starting accuracy level. Companies can begin investing in these components from the early stages, focusing on evaluating retrieval quality and identifying bottlenecks. As Large Language Models (LLMs) continue to improve, RAG systems are predicted to become simpler, with fewer components requiring less engineering effort. From my experience as a founder, starting a company as an academic involves a significant shift from academic research to practical application, requiring a clear focus on market needs and a willingness to adapt to new technologies and trends.
Efficiency in Academia and Industry: Both academia and industry require efficiency and a focus on long-term innovations to complement each other in the age of AI scaling. Academia should focus on challenging research areas, while industry prioritizes near-term impact.
Starting a company involves wearing multiple hats and learning from various resources, even the most basic books, to minimize mistakes and maximize efficiency. Academia, on the other hand, plays a crucial role in long-term innovations, focusing on questions that industry may not prioritize due to resource constraints. The speaker emphasizes the importance of efficiency in both academia and industry, and encourages researchers to think about breakthroughs that could significantly impact the landscape within 3-5 years. In academia, the focus should be on challenging research areas like reasoning tasks, where the scaling laws may not be enough to achieve superhuman performance or prove complex mathematical conjectures. By improving efficiency and focusing on long-term innovations, academia and industry can complement each other in the age of AI scaling.
Mathematician's knowledge: Relying on common crowd data isn't enough for becoming a good mathematician, universities and labs are essential for deeper innovations and long-term research.
Relying solely on common crowd data from the web may not be sufficient for becoming a good mathematician. The field requires deeper innovations and long-term research, which is what universities and labs are working on. This is an inspiring reminder of the vast amount of knowledge still to be discovered. Thanks for tuning in to No Priorities Podcast. Connect with us on Twitter, subscribe to our YouTube channel, and follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen for a new episode every week. Don't forget to sign up for emails or check out transcripts for every episode at nodashpriors.com.