Data Augmentation
Data augmentation plays a pivotal role in enhancing the performance and generalization capabilities of LLMs. By artificially expanding the training dataset, we can expose our models to a wider range of linguistic variations and contexts, improving their ability to handle diverse inputs and generate more coherent and contextually appropriate outputs.
In the context of LLMs, data augmentation takes on unique challenges and opportunities. Unlike image data, where simple transformations such as rotation or flipping can create valid new samples, text data requires more nuanced approaches to maintain semantic integrity and linguistic coherence. The main goals of data augmentation for LLMs include increasing dataset size and diversity, addressing data imbalance and bias, improving model robustness to variations in input, and enhancing generalization to unseen data.
In Figure 3.1, I illustrate the key aspects of data augmentation.

Figure 3...