Safely Learning with Private Data: A Federated Learning Framework for Large Language Model

ACL ARR 2024 June Submission2415 Authors

15 Jun 2024 (modified: 07 Aug 2024)ACL ARR 2024 June SubmissionEveryoneRevisionsBibTeXCC BY 4.0
Abstract: Private data, being larger and quality-higher than public data, can greatly improve large language models (LLM). However, due to privacy concerns, this data is often dispersed in multiple silos, making its secure utilization for LLM training a challenge. Federated learning (FL) is an ideal solution for training models with distributed private data, but traditional frameworks like FedAvg are unsuitable for LLM due to their high computational demands on clients. An alternative, split learning, offloads most training parameters to the server while training embedding and output layers locally, making it more suitable for LLM. Nonetheless, it faces significant challenges in security and efficiency. Firstly, the gradients of embeddings are prone to attacks, leading to potential reverse engineering of private data. Furthermore, the server's limitation of handling only one client's training request at a time hinders parallel training, severely impacting training efficiency. In this paper, we propose a Federated Learning framework for LLM, named FL-GLM, which prevents data leakage caused by both server-side and peer-client attacks while improving training efficiency. Specifically, we first place the input block and output block on local client to prevent embedding gradient attacks from server. Secondly, we employ key-encryption during client-server communication to prevent reverse engineering attacks from peer-clients. Lastly, we employ optimization methods like client-batching or server-hierarchical, adopting different acceleration methods based on the actual computational capabilities of the server. Experimental results on NLU and generation tasks demonstrate that FL-GLM achieves comparable metrics to centralized chatGLM model, validating the effectiveness of our federated learning framework.
Paper Type: Long
Research Area: Generation
Research Area Keywords: Split Learning, Fed Learning, Large Language Models, Private Data
Contribution Types: Approaches to low-resource settings
Languages Studied: English
Submission Number: 2415
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