Phase 2: Supervised learning for instruction understanding
Supervised learning, also known as instruction tuning, is the second stage in the training process of
large language models (LLMs). It’s a crucial phase that builds upon the foundational knowledge acquired during the self-supervised learning stage.
In this phase, the model is explicitly trained to follow instructions. This goes beyond the basic prediction of words and sentences, which is the main focus of the self-supervised learning stage. The model now learns to respond to specific requests, making it far more interactive and useful.
The effectiveness of instruction tuning in enhancing the capabilities of LLMs has been demonstrated in various studies,
several of which included Snorkel researchers. One notable outcome was that the model showed improved performance in generalizing to new, unseen tasks. This is a significant achievement as one of the main objectives of machine learning models is to perform well on unseen data.
Due to its proven effectiveness, instruction tuning has become a standard part of LLM training. With the completion of the instruction tuning phase, the model is now explicitly trained to be a helper, doing more than just predicting the next words and sentences. It’s now ready to interact with users, understand their requests, and provide helpful responses.