On the Robustness of Editing Large Language Models

Xinbei Ma, Tianjie Ju, Jiyang Qiu, Zhuosheng Zhang, Hai Zhao, Lifeng Liu, Yulong Wang


Abstract
Large language models (LLMs) have played a pivotal role in building communicative AI, yet they encounter the challenge of efficient updates. Model editing enables the manipulation of specific knowledge memories and the behavior of language generation without retraining. However, the robustness of model editing remains an open question. This work seeks to understand the strengths and limitations of editing methods, facilitating practical applications of communicative AI. We focus on three key research questions. RQ1: Can edited LLMs behave consistently resembling communicative AI in realistic situations? RQ2: To what extent does the rephrasing of prompts lead LLMs to deviate from the edited knowledge memory? RQ3: Which knowledge features are correlated with the performance and robustness of editing? Our empirical studies uncover a substantial disparity between existing editing methods and the practical application of LLMs. On rephrased prompts that are flexible but common in realistic applications, the performance of editing experiences a significant decline. Further analysis shows that more popular knowledge is memorized better, easier to recall, and more challenging to edit effectively.
Anthology ID:
2024.emnlp-main.906
Volume:
Proceedings of the 2024 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing
Month:
November
Year:
2024
Address:
Miami, Florida, USA
Editors:
Yaser Al-Onaizan, Mohit Bansal, Yun-Nung Chen
Venue:
EMNLP
SIG:
Publisher:
Association for Computational Linguistics
Note:
Pages:
16197–16216
Language:
URL:
https://aclanthology.org/2024.emnlp-main.906
DOI:
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Xinbei Ma, Tianjie Ju, Jiyang Qiu, Zhuosheng Zhang, Hai Zhao, Lifeng Liu, and Yulong Wang. 2024. On the Robustness of Editing Large Language Models. In Proceedings of the 2024 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing, pages 16197–16216, Miami, Florida, USA. Association for Computational Linguistics.
Cite (Informal):
On the Robustness of Editing Large Language Models (Ma et al., EMNLP 2024)
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PDF:
https://aclanthology.org/2024.emnlp-main.906.pdf
Software:
 2024.emnlp-main.906.software.zip