MemoryLLM: Plug-n-Play Interpretable Feed-Forward Memory for Transformers
Understanding how transformer components operate in LLMs is important, as it is at the core of recent technological advances in artificial intelligence. In this work, we revisit the challenges associated with interpretability of feed-forward modules (FFNs) and propose MemoryLLM, which aims to decouple FFNs from self-attention and enables us to study the decoupled FFNs as context-free token-wise neural retrieval memory. In detail, we investigate how input tokens access memory locations within FFN parameters and the importance of FFN memory across different downstream tasks. MemoryLLM achieves context-free FFNs by training them in isolation from self-attention directly using the token embeddings. This approach allows FFNs to be pre-computed as token-wise lookups (ToLs), enabling on-demand transfer between VRAM and storage, additionally enhancing inference efficiency. We also introduce Flex-MemoryLLM, positioning it between a conventional transformer design and MemoryLLM. This architecture bridges the performance gap caused by training FFNs with context-free token-wise embeddings.
698376e437bca54cd0587da7
Ajay Jaiswal
698376e437bca54cd0587da8
Lauren Hannah
698376e437bca54cd0587da9
Han-Byul Kim
698376e437bca54cd0587daa
Duc Hoang
698376e437bca54cd0587dab
Arnav Kundu
698376e437bca54cd0587dac
Mehrdad Farajtabar
698376e437bca54cd0587dad
Minsik Cho
MemoryLLM: Plug-n-Play Interpretable Feed-Forward Memory for Transformers
Understanding how transformer components operate in LLMs is important, as it is at the core of recent technological advances in artificial intelligence. In this work, we revisit the challenges associated with interpretability of feed-forward modules (FFNs) and propose MemoryLLM, which aims to decouple FFNs from self-attention and enables us to study the decoupled FFNs as context-free token-wise neural retrieval memory. In detail, we investigate how input tokens access memory locations within FFN parameters and the importance of FFN memory across different downstream tasks. MemoryLLM achieves context-free FFNs by training them in isolation from self-attention directly using the token embeddings. This approach allows FFNs to be pre-computed as token-wise lookups (ToLs), enabling on-demand transfer between VRAM and storage, additionally enhancing inference efficiency. We also introduce Flex-MemoryLLM, positioning it between a conventional transformer design and MemoryLLM. This architecture bridges the performance gap caused by training FFNs with context-free token-wise embeddings.
MemoryLLM decouples feed-forward networks from self-attention in transformers, enabling context-free token-wise neural retrieval memory that improves inference efficiency through pre-computed lookups.
transformer components feed-forward modules self-attention interpretability MemoryLLM context-free token-wise neural retrieval memory token embeddings pre-computed lookups Flex-MemoryLLM