Adds the union-preserving recombination operator that llm_merge lacked (E8's max,
not mean): keep each specialist LoRA intact and SELECT the right one per prompt
(MoE router: oracle, or training-free nearest-centroid over base embeddings) or
per module (max_merge = winner-take-all by delta norm). src/llm/moe.py, kind
llm_moe, reuses the cached specialists.
Result — a clean regime boundary for "merge, don't average":
- 0.5B: union wins. Routing 0.74 / worst-family 0.43 > soup 0.64 / 0.26, with no
dilution (recovers each specialist's own-family peak). E8's max > mean in real
weights, because at a weak base averaging dilutes.
- 7B (Imperial CX3, L40S, 9 min): the ordering INVERTS. Fusion wins — soup 0.87 >
routing 0.84 > max_merge 0.78. Routing is capped at the best parent per family;
fusion blends and, given a capable base, COMPOSES beyond any parent (soup lists
0.62 > spec 0.57). Selection can't synthesise better than its best component;
averaging-that-composes can.
So "merge, don't average" (E4/E8) is a weak-parent / small-model law, not
universal: union wins under dilution, fusion wins under composition. Refines E8
(its additive-landscape max>mean assumed no compositional headroom). The operator
to want is fusion-that-composes + offspring selection = the directed-sex ideal
(E10) — the natural next experiment.
Honest riders: the learned router is trivially perfect (lexically-distinct
families), and router-free max_merge is the weakest union (not input-adaptive).
+2 router unit tests (127 green). Results in results/llm_moe{,_hpc}/ (parquet
gitignored per the reproducibility contract).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Re-ran the specialist-merge experiment at a capable base (Qwen2.5-7B-Instruct,
200 tests/family) on one L40S GPU of Imperial's CX3 HPC (8 min walltime). The
two caveats the 0.5B prototype left marginal are now resolved:
- "exceeds every parent overall" is clean: both merges 0.87 vs best specialist
0.77 (+10 pts), and above every specialist on every family.
- dilution vanishes: at 0.5B averaging diluted the lists-specialist
(0.43->0.26); at 7B the merge beats it (0.62>0.57). Dilution was a
small-model artefact -- a capable base composes rather than dilutes, which
softens E4's "merge, don't average" once the parents are strong.
The figure title is now data-driven (reports ">" for 7B, "~" for 0.5B).
Adds the hpc/ smoke job script and the llm_merge walltime trim. Results synced
to results/llm_merge_hpc/ (parquet gitignored per the reproducibility contract).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Enable running the LLM tier on Imperial's HPC (scheduler: PBS Pro / qsub).
- hpc/probe.pbs: 10-min 1-GPU reconnaissance job resolving the two unknowns
the RCS docs omit -- compute-node internet access and the L40S driver's
CUDA version -- plus TMPDIR/disk and available python/cuda modules.
- hpc/llm_merge.pbs: scaled run on an L40S (48 GB), offline HF-cache wired,
runs configs/llm/merge_hpc.yaml.
- configs/llm/merge_hpc.yaml: Qwen2.5-7B-Instruct (fits the L40S) to reduce
the noise that left the 0.5B prototype's overall-exceeds sign marginal.
- hpc/README.md: the git-based workflow (login-node uv env + model
pre-download -> qsub -> rsync results back), confirmed PBS/GPU directives,
and the code TODOs for the definitive run (multi-seed, more families,
directed/dilution-resistant merge).
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.8 <noreply@anthropic.com>
