A knowledge distillation approach that uses extreme loss function weighting to force neural networks to preserve semantic differences between distinct concepts while preventing mode collapse. The technique employs "nuclear" (extreme) lambda parameters that heavily weight diversity preservation over teacher alignment, ensuring that different input concepts produce genuinely different vector representations.
Key characteristics:
Uses extreme weighting ratios (e.g., λ_diversity = 2.0-6.0 vs λ_alignment = 0.02-0.1)
Prevents mode collapse where different inputs produce nearly identical outputs
Maintains semantic separation in compressed vector spaces
Applied in the LN (Learning Networks) Semantic Encoder architecture
Measures success by reducing cosine similarity between different concepts from ~0.99 to ~0.3-0.7
The term "nuclear" emphasizes the aggressive, sometimes extreme measures needed to solve fundamental problems in neural network training where subtle parameter adjustments fail to achieve the desired diversity preservation.
Key characteristics:
Uses extreme weighting ratios (e.g., λ_diversity = 2.0-6.0 vs λ_alignment = 0.02-0.1)
Prevents mode collapse where different inputs produce nearly identical outputs
Maintains semantic separation in compressed vector spaces
Applied in the LN (Learning Networks) Semantic Encoder architecture
Measures success by reducing cosine similarity between different concepts from ~0.99 to ~0.3-0.7
The term "nuclear" emphasizes the aggressive, sometimes extreme measures needed to solve fundamental problems in neural network training where subtle parameter adjustments fail to achieve the desired diversity preservation.
The researchers implemented nuclear diversity in their knowledge distillation pipeline, using extreme lambda weighting of 6.0 for diversity preservation versus 0.02 for teacher alignment, successfully reducing semantic collapse from 0.998 to 0.324 cosine similarity between distinct concepts.
by Trentism July 09, 2025