arXiv Machine Learning By Thanh Q. Tran, John Russell Himawan, Arun Verma, Kiwan Wong, Wei Xiao, Daniela Rus, Bryan Kian Hsiang Low

DIAL: Steerable Language Models with Distilled Instruction-Adherence Levels

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DIAL (Distilled Instruction-Adherence Levels) is a steerable language model that offers fine‑grained numerical control over how closely a model follows general instructions, such as varying the length of a response. It achieves this by using classifier‑free guidance with a frozen LLM to train a lightweight steering adapter that computes a closed‑form edit based on a classifier over hidden states, allowing adaptive steering magnitude per token while preserving coherence. The approach is efficient, scalable across diverse instructions, and is evaluated on multiple LLM families, showing improved concept expression and fluency, with a new dataset SteerIF providing instruction‑only training data. whyItMatters":"The paper presents a method that simultaneously delivers fine‑grained control, efficiency, and scalability for instruction adherence in language models, addressing a key limitation of current prompting techniques."

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