The podcast discusses the complexities of Language Model evaluation, the use of open-source versus private models, and the urgency of getting models into production. It also explores the challenges of evaluating LLM outcomes and highlights the importance of prompt engineering. Additionally, it emphasizes the need to quickly get ML models into production for identifying bottlenecks and setting up metrics.
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Quick takeaways
Evaluating language models in real-world applications is crucial for performance improvement through prompt engineering rather than fine-tuning.
Choosing the right model for language model applications should prioritize specific performance outcomes and practical effectiveness over factors like fine-tuning and accessibility to model weights.
Deep dives
Evaluation Space and LLM Performance
The podcast episode discusses the evaluation space in the context of language model (LLM) performance. It highlights the importance of evaluating LLMs in real-world applications and emphasizes the need to prioritize evaluation before considering fine-tuning. The episode explores the challenges of evaluating LLM outcomes, including retrieval accuracy and response correctness. It also showcases the concept of LLM as a judge, where an LLM evaluates the output of another LLM, and how it can be used to improve the performance of LLM-based applications. The episode also introduces Phoenix, an open-source package for LLM observability, which offers features like full trace visualization and evals library for task evaluation.
Importance of Prompt Engineering
The podcast highlights the significance of prompt engineering in improving LLM performance. It emphasizes that prompt engineering is often a more effective approach than fine-tuning when aiming to enhance LLM outputs. The episode discusses the impact of prompt variations on LLM responses and encourages developers to prioritize prompt adjustments and optimization before considering fine-tuning or customizing LLMs. It also mentions the role of embeddings in evaluating and visualizing prompt-context relationships, providing insights into prompt relevance and potential improvements in retrieval accuracy.
Choosing Between Open Source and Private Models
The episode analyzes the choice between open source and private models for LLM applications. It advises listeners to prioritize selecting a model that best meets their specific application requirements and performance outcomes, rather than solely considering factors like fine-tuning or accessibility to model weights. It suggests starting with the available open source models, such as GPT-4, as they can often deliver satisfactory results without the need for extensive fine-tuning or customization. The episode emphasizes the need to focus on the practical effectiveness and timely deployment of LLM-based applications, rather than concerns related to long-term scalability or future modifications to models.
Key Takeaways and Hot Takes
The episode concludes with key takeaways, including the importance of evaluating LLMs in real-world applications, the significance of prompt engineering for improving LLM performance, and the decision-making process in choosing between open source and private models. It also features the host's hot takes, such as cautioning against early fine-tuning and highlighting the benefits of getting LLM applications into production quickly for identifying bottlenecks and addressing potential issues. The podcast episode aims to provide insights and best practices for effectively leveraging LLMs and achieving desirable outcomes in various applications.
Large Language Models have taken the world by storm. But what are the real use cases? What are the challenges in productionizing them? In this event, you will hear from practitioners about how they are dealing with things such as cost optimization, latency requirements, trust of output, and debugging. You will also get the opportunity to join workshops that will teach you how to set up your use cases and skip over all the headaches.
Join the AI in Production Conference on February 15 and 22 here: https://home.mlops.community/home/events/ai-in-production-2024-02-15
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Aparna Dhinakaran is the Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at Arize AI, a pioneer and early leader in machine learning (ML) observability.
MLOps podcast #210 with Aparna Dhinakaran, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer of Arize AI, LLM Evaluation with Arize AI's Aparna Dhinakaran.
// Abstract
Dive into the complexities of Language Model (LLM) evaluation, the role of the Phoenix evaluations library, and the importance of highly customized evaluations in software application. The discourse delves into the nuances of fine-tuning in AI, the debate between the use of open-source versus private models, and the urgency of getting models into production for early identification of bottlenecks. Then examine the relevance of retrieved information, output legitimacy, and the operational advantages of Phoenix in supporting LLM evaluations.
// Bio
Aparna Dhinakaran is the Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at Arize AI, a pioneer and early leader in AI observability and LLM evaluation. A frequent speaker at top conferences and thought leader in the space, Dhinakaran is a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree. Before Arize, Dhinakaran was an ML engineer and leader at Uber, Apple, and TubeMogul (acquired by Adobe). During her time at Uber, she built several core ML Infrastructure platforms, including Michelangelo. She has a bachelor’s from Berkeley's Electrical Engineering and Computer Science program, where she published research with Berkeley's AI Research group. She is on a leave of absence from the Computer Vision Ph.D. program at Cornell University.
// MLOps Jobs board
https://mlops.pallet.xyz/jobs
// MLOps Swag/Merch
https://mlops-community.myshopify.com/
// Related Links
Arize-Phoenix: https://phoenix.arize.com/
Phoenix LLM task eval library: https://docs.arize.com/phoenix/llm-evals/running-pre-tested-evals
Aparna's recent piece on LLM evaluation: https://arize.com/blog-course/llm-evaluation-the-definitive-guide/
Thread on the difference between model and task LLM evals: https://twitter.com/aparnadhinak/status/1752763354320404488
Research thread on why numeric score evals are broken: https://twitter.com/aparnadhinak/status/1748368364395721128
--------------- ✌️Connect With Us ✌️ -------------
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Connect with Demetrios on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dpbrinkm/
Connect with Aparna on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aparnadhinakaran/
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