Group 1 - The core argument is that Nvidia's dominance in the GPU market will face increasing competition within the next 2-3 years as specialized chips for different workloads emerge, leading to a more diversified ecosystem [6][9][23] - Tri Dao emphasizes that the architecture for AI models, particularly the Transformer, is stabilizing, but there are still ongoing changes and challenges in chip design and workload adaptation [11][12][21] - The future of AI workloads will include three main types: traditional chatbots, ultra-low latency scenarios, and large-scale batch processing, which will require tailored optimizations from hardware vendors [24][96] Group 2 - The cost of inference has decreased by approximately 100 times since the launch of ChatGPT, driven by improvements in model efficiency and inference optimization techniques [73][75][90] - Techniques such as model quantization and collaborative design between model architecture and hardware have significantly contributed to this cost reduction [82][84][88] - There is still an estimated potential for a further 10-fold improvement in inference optimization, particularly through specialized hardware and model advancements [90][93][95] Group 3 - The AI hardware landscape is expected to diversify as companies like Cerebras, Grok, and SambaNova introduce solutions that emphasize low-latency inference and high throughput for various applications [23][24][96] - The emergence of specialized AI inference providers will lead to different trade-offs, with some focusing on broad coverage while others aim for excellence in specific scenarios [96][97] - The evolution of AI workloads will continue to drive demand for innovative solutions, particularly in real-time video generation and agentic applications that require seamless integration with human tools [117][115][120]

Core Viewpoint - The article discusses the trade-offs between State Space Models (SSM) and Transformers, arguing that tokenization is a limitation that SSM can overcome, leading to better computational efficiency and modeling capabilities [1][3][61]. Group 1: State Space Models (SSM) - SSM is defined as a modern version of recurrent neural networks (RNN) with key features that allow it to match the language modeling performance of Transformers [8][10]. - A significant characteristic of SSM is that its hidden state dimension is greater than the input and output dimensions, allowing for better context storage [9][10]. - The model's state update function must be expressive enough to accurately encode and retrieve necessary information, which is achieved through dynamic transfer matrices in selective SSM [11][12]. - Mamba, a specific SSM, integrates parallelization and memory management techniques to enhance computational efficiency [13][14]. - The article highlights that SSMs can outperform Transformers in language modeling tasks when computational resources are matched [53][56]. Group 2: Transformers - Transformers excel in tasks requiring fine-grained operations on individual tokens, but they suffer from quadratic complexity, limiting their efficiency [82][86]. - The article argues that Transformers have an inductive bias that affects their modeling capabilities, making them sensitive to the resolution and semantic content of the data [83][85]. - Despite their strengths, Transformers are not the ultimate solution for all modeling tasks, and there is still significant work to be done in the field [89]. Group 3: Tokenization - Tokenization is a critical step in language modeling, but it introduces limitations in understanding language details [39][40]. - The article posits that removing tokenization could lead to better model performance and aligns with the essence of deep learning, which aims to minimize manual feature engineering [44][45]. - The author suggests that without tokenization, models could learn more effective patterns directly from raw data, enhancing their capabilities [46][52].

Core Viewpoint - The article discusses the trade-offs between two mainstream sequence models: State Space Models (SSMs) and Transformer models, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of each approach [1][3]. Summary by Sections Introduction to Mamba and SSMs - Mamba is a typical SSM that builds on a modern structured SSM suitable for deep learning, outperforming similarly sized Transformers in language tasks [2]. - The author consolidates insights from previous talks into a comprehensive article, hinting at a significant upcoming advancement in architecture [3][4]. Attention Mechanism and Its Limitations - The article challenges the common belief that the high computational cost of models like ChatGPT is solely due to the quadratic complexity of the attention mechanism in Transformers [5][6]. - A new architecture is expected to be compatible with Transformers, suggesting a shift in understanding the limitations of attention mechanisms [7][8]. Comparison of SSMs and Transformers - SSMs are likened to the human brain, summarizing past information into a fixed-size hidden state, making them more efficient for processing long sequences [15][16]. - SSMs have advantages in handling unstructured data and exhibit linear computational costs with respect to sequence length, making them suitable for resource-constrained environments [16]. Key Elements of Mamba's Success - Mamba's effectiveness is attributed to three key factors: state size, state expressivity, and training efficiency [17][20]. - SSMs allow for larger hidden states, enhancing information storage compared to traditional RNNs [18]. - Mamba introduces selective SSMs to improve state expressivity, akin to the gating mechanisms in classic RNNs [19]. - Training efficiency is achieved through careful parameterization and parallel scanning algorithms [21]. Limitations of SSMs - SSMs lack precise recall and retrieval capabilities for past information, which is a strength of Transformer models [22]. Transformer Model Characteristics - Transformers function like a database, storing every piece of information in a KV cache, allowing for precise memory and token-level operations [23][25]. - They excel in processing well-defined tokenized data but suffer from high computational costs and dependency on high-quality data [26][27]. Tokenization Debate - The author argues against the necessity of tokenization, stating it contradicts the end-to-end learning principle of deep learning and complicates multilingual and multimodal applications [28][30]. - Evidence suggests that SSMs outperform Transformers on raw data, emphasizing Transformers' weaknesses with non-semantic token data [32]. Conclusion on SSMs vs. Transformers - Both SSMs and Transformers have their unique strengths and weaknesses, and a hybrid approach could yield better performance [33][35]. - Research indicates that a combination of SSM and attention layers could enhance model capabilities, with an optimal ratio of 3:1 to 10:1 [37]. - The future direction may involve developing models that can directly process raw data, leveraging the advantages of both architectures [40].

Core Insights - The article discusses the advantages of linear recurrent models, such as Mamba, and linear attention mechanisms in handling long sequences, which is crucial for long-context reasoning tasks [1][2] - It highlights the performance improvements of recurrent models over time, indicating that they can now compete with Transformers in various tasks, despite previous limitations [3] - A significant finding is that recurrent models struggle with generalization beyond training lengths, leading to performance drops when faced with longer sequences [4][6] Group 1 - The article presents a solution to the generalization issue in recurrent models through simple training interventions, allowing them to generalize to sequences up to 256k in length with just 500 additional training steps [7] - The research emphasizes that recurrent models possess untapped potential rather than inherent flaws [7][8] - The authors propose the "Unexplored States Hypothesis" to explain why recurrent models fail to generalize in length, indicating that they only learn from a limited subset of possible states during training [13][14] Group 2 - The article outlines four training interventions to improve length generalization by altering the initial state of the model [19] - These interventions include Random Noise, Fitted Noise, State Passing, and Truncated Backpropagation Through Time (TBTT), each designed to expose the model to a broader range of state distributions [20][19] - The findings reveal that State Passing and TBTT mechanisms effectively enable length generalization, achieving results with only 0.02% of the original pre-training budget [23][24] Group 3 - The article discusses the performance of these interventions in various long-context tasks, demonstrating their ability to enhance length generalization [31] - Specific tasks mentioned include the BABILong benchmark, password retrieval, and synthetic copying tasks, where the interventions significantly improved model performance [32][35][39] - The results indicate that models trained with these interventions can effectively utilize relationships between tokens beyond the training context length [36][39] Group 4 - The article introduces the concept of "Effective Remembrance" to measure how well a model retains information from previous tokens, aiming for models to focus on recent context rather than distant tokens [44][50] - It shows that State Passing improves effective memory, allowing models to prioritize recent tokens in their predictions [51][52] - This adjustment is crucial for text modeling, ensuring that earlier tokens do not disproportionately influence the model's output [52]

"我们跑的是下半场，赌的就是未来的长文本需求。" MiniMax 在今年 1 月发布了参数为 4560 亿的开源大模型 MiniMax-01，该模型就用到了他们开发的线 性注意力机制 "Lightning Attention"。 我们邀请了这个项目的负责人，MiniMax 高级研究总监钟怡然，来与我们一起聊线性注意力的研发过 程。钟怡然在 MiniMax 负责大模型网络架构设计，目前正开发多模态深度推理模型。 钟怡然曾担任上海人工智能实验室青年科学家，是新架构探索组的 PI（项目负责人）；他在澳洲国立大 学获得博士学位，师从李宏东教授和 Richard Hartley 院士。他和他的团队已在一些国际顶级学术会议和 期刊上发表了 20 余篇关于模型新架构的论文，覆盖了当前多类非 Transformer 架构，如线性注意力机制 （线性注意力）、长卷积（Long Convolution）和线性循环网络（Linear RNN）。 在 2021 年，线性注意力还是一个 "看起来很美好的泡泡"，怡然和团队就开始探索线性架构的实现。 嘉宾 丨 钟怡然 整理 丨 刘倩 程曼祺 上期播客中， 我们与清华的两位博士生，肖朝军和傅 ...