Simple Averaging¶

Simple averaging is known in the literature as isotropic merging, ModelSoups, aims to yield a more robust and generalizable model. Simple Averaging is a technique frequently employed when there are multiple models that have been fine-tuned or independently trained from scratch. Specifically, if we possess \(n\) models that share a common architecture but different weights denoted as \(\theta_i\), the weights of the merged model, represented as \(\theta\), are computed as follows:

\[ \theta = \frac{1}{n} \sum_{i=1}^{n} \theta_i \]

This equation simply states that each weight of the final model is the average of the corresponding weights in the individual models. For example, if we have three models and the weight of the first neuron in the first layer is 0.1, 0.2, and 0.3 in each model respectively, the weight of that neuron in the final model will be (0.1 + 0.2 + 0.3) / 3 = 0.2.

Simple averaging is a straightforward and scalable method for model fusion. It does not require any additional training or fine-tuning, making it a good choice when computational resources are limited, where maintaining an ensemble of models is not feasible.

This method often assumes that all models are equally good. If some models are significantly better than others, it might be beneficial to assign more weight to the better models when averaging. This can be done by using weighted averaging, where each model's contribution to the final model is weighted by its performance on a validation set or some other metric. See Weighed Averaging for more details. Otherwise, the poor model may have a negative impact on the merged model.

Examples¶

In this example, we will demonstrate how to use the SimpleAverageAlgorithm class from the fusion_bench.method module. This algorithm is used to merge multiple models by averaging their parameters.

from fusion_bench.method.simple_average import SimpleAverageAlgorithm

# Instantiate the SimpleAverageAlgorithm
# This algorithm will be used to merge multiple models by averaging their parameters.
algorithm = SimpleAverageAlgorithm()

# Assume we have a list of PyTorch models (nn.Module instances) that we want to merge.
# The models should all have the same architecture.
models = [...]

# Run the algorithm on the models.
# This will return a new model that is the result of averaging the parameters of the input models.
merged_model = algorithm.run(models)

The run method of the SimpleAverageAlgorithm class takes a list of models as input and returns a new model. The new model's parameters are the average of the parameters of the input models. This is useful in scenarios where you have trained multiple models and want to combine them into a single model that hopefully performs better than any individual model.

Code Integration¶

Configuration template for the Simple Averaging algorithm:

config/method/simple_average.yaml

name: simple_average

use the following command to run the Simple Averaging algorithm:

fusion_bench method=simple_average ...

References¶

`SimpleAverageAlgorithm` ¶

Bases: ModelFusionAlgorithm, SimpleProfilerMixin

Source code in fusion_bench/method/simple_average.py

class SimpleAverageAlgorithm(
    ModelFusionAlgorithm,
    SimpleProfilerMixin,
):
    @torch.no_grad()
    def run(self, modelpool: ModelPool):
        """
        Fuse the models in the given model pool using simple averaging.

        This method iterates over the names of the models in the model pool, loads each model, and appends it to a list.
        It then returns the simple average of the models in the list.

        Args:
            modelpool: The pool of models to fuse.

        Returns:
            The fused model obtained by simple averaging.
        """
        modelpool = to_modelpool(modelpool)
        log.info(
            f"Fusing models using simple average on {len(modelpool.model_names)} models."
            f"models: {modelpool.model_names}"
        )
        sd: Optional[StateDictType] = None
        forward_model = None

        for model_name in modelpool.model_names:
            with self.profile("load model"):
                model = modelpool.load_model(model_name)
            with self.profile("merge weights"):
                if sd is None:
                    sd = model.state_dict(keep_vars=True)
                    forward_model = model
                else:
                    sd = state_dict_add(sd, model.state_dict(keep_vars=True))
        with self.profile("merge weights"):
            sd = state_dict_mul(sd, 1 / len(modelpool.model_names))

        self.print_profile_summary()
        forward_model.load_state_dict(sd)
        return forward_model

`run(modelpool)` ¶

Fuse the models in the given model pool using simple averaging.

This method iterates over the names of the models in the model pool, loads each model, and appends it to a list. It then returns the simple average of the models in the list.

Parameters:

modelpool (ModelPool) –

The pool of models to fuse.

Returns:

–

The fused model obtained by simple averaging.