arXiv AI By Zhiliang Chen, Alfred Wei Lun Leong, Shao Yong Ong, Apivich Hemachandra, Gregory Kang Ruey Lau, Chuan-Sheng Foo, Zhengyuan Liu, Nancy F. Chen, Bryan Kian Hsiang Low

Rethinking Bayesian Optimization for Co-Optimizing LLM Training Configurations

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The paper introduces JoBS, a Bayesian optimization framework that co‑optimizes data and model configurations for large language model training without requiring full training runs at each iteration. JoBS first allocates part of the budget to train a scaling‑law‑inspired performance predictor using only a few training steps, then uses this predictor to guide subsequent BO iterations, thereby exploring many more configurations within the same budget. The authors analyze JoBS’s regret, derive optimal budget splits, and demonstrate that it outperforms both independent optimization and existing multi‑fidelity BO baselines across diverse downstream tasks.

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arXiv AI
5d ago

BoLT: A Benchmark to Democratize Black-box Optimization Research for Expensive LLM Tasks

BoLT is a new benchmark designed to make black-box optimization research for large language model (LLM) tasks more accessible. It presents a suite of realistic LLM optimization problems—covering multi‑fidelity, multi‑objective, heteroscedastic noise, and high‑dimensional search spaces—grounded in thousands of real experiments and represented by lightweight surrogate models. The authors evaluate a wide range of Bayesian and other black‑box optimization methods on BoLT, finding that some BO techniques consistently outperform others and revealing gaps in current methods for LLM optimization.

By Ruth Wan Theng Chew, Zhiliang Chen, Apivich Hemachandra, Bryan Kian Hsiang Low
arXiv Machine Learning
Oct 15

Tree-Structured Synergy of Large Language Models and Bayesian Optimization for Efficient CASH

The paper introduces LB-MCTS, a trajectory-structured optimization framework that combines Monte Carlo Tree Search, Bayesian Optimization, and Large Language Models to address the CASH problem in AutoML. It uses a shared tree state for algorithm selection, hyperparameter refinement, and synergy between BO and LLM proposals, with a reliability-aware policy that shifts from LLM-driven to BO-driven suggestions as the surrogate model improves. Experiments on 104 AMLB datasets show that LB-MCTS consistently outperforms existing BO-based, LLM-based, and hybrid baselines.

By Beicheng Xu, Weitong Qian, Lingching Tung, Yupeng Lu, Bin Cui