natural-language-inference-bert_origin.md

Natural Language Inference: Fine-Tuning BERT

🏷️sec_natural-language-inference-bert

In earlier sections of this chapter, we have designed an attention-based architecture (in :numref:sec_natural-language-inference-attention) for the natural language inference task on the SNLI dataset (as described in :numref:sec_natural-language-inference-and-dataset). Now we revisit this task by fine-tuning BERT. As discussed in :numref:sec_finetuning-bert, natural language inference is a sequence-level text pair classification problem, and fine-tuning BERT only requires an additional MLP-based architecture, as illustrated in :numref:fig_nlp-map-nli-bert.

🏷️fig_nlp-map-nli-bert

In this section, we will download a pretrained small version of BERT, then fine-tune it for natural language inference on the SNLI dataset.

from d2l import mxnet as d2l
import json
import multiprocessing
from mxnet import gluon, np, npx
from mxnet.gluon import nn
import os

npx.set_np()

#@tab pytorch
from d2l import torch as d2l
import json
import multiprocessing
import torch
from torch import nn
import os

Loading Pretrained BERT

We have explained how to pretrain BERT on the WikiText-2 dataset in :numref:sec_bert-dataset and :numref:sec_bert-pretraining (note that the original BERT model is pretrained on much bigger corpora). As discussed in :numref:sec_bert-pretraining, the original BERT model has hundreds of millions of parameters. In the following, we provide two versions of pretrained BERT: "bert.base" is about as big as the original BERT base model that requires a lot of computational resources to fine-tune, while "bert.small" is a small version to facilitate demonstration.

d2l.DATA_HUB['bert.base'] = (d2l.DATA_URL + 'bert.base.zip',
                             '7b3820b35da691042e5d34c0971ac3edbd80d3f4')
d2l.DATA_HUB['bert.small'] = (d2l.DATA_URL + 'bert.small.zip',
                              'a4e718a47137ccd1809c9107ab4f5edd317bae2c')

#@tab pytorch
d2l.DATA_HUB['bert.base'] = (d2l.DATA_URL + 'bert.base.torch.zip',
                             '225d66f04cae318b841a13d32af3acc165f253ac')
d2l.DATA_HUB['bert.small'] = (d2l.DATA_URL + 'bert.small.torch.zip',
                              'c72329e68a732bef0452e4b96a1c341c8910f81f')

Either pretrained BERT model contains a "vocab.json" file that defines the vocabulary set and a "pretrained.params" file of the pretrained parameters. We implement the following load_pretrained_model function to load pretrained BERT parameters.

def load_pretrained_model(pretrained_model, num_hiddens, ffn_num_hiddens,
                          num_heads, num_layers, dropout, max_len, devices):
    data_dir = d2l.download_extract(pretrained_model)
    # Define an empty vocabulary to load the predefined vocabulary
    vocab = d2l.Vocab()
    vocab.idx_to_token = json.load(open(os.path.join(data_dir, 'vocab.json')))
    vocab.token_to_idx = {token: idx for idx, token in enumerate(
        vocab.idx_to_token)}
    bert = d2l.BERTModel(len(vocab), num_hiddens, ffn_num_hiddens, num_heads, 
                         num_layers, dropout, max_len)
    # Load pretrained BERT parameters
    bert.load_parameters(os.path.join(data_dir, 'pretrained.params'),
                         ctx=devices)
    return bert, vocab

#@tab pytorch
def load_pretrained_model(pretrained_model, num_hiddens, ffn_num_hiddens,
                          num_heads, num_layers, dropout, max_len, devices):
    data_dir = d2l.download_extract(pretrained_model)
    # Define an empty vocabulary to load the predefined vocabulary
    vocab = d2l.Vocab()
    vocab.idx_to_token = json.load(open(os.path.join(data_dir, 'vocab.json')))
    vocab.token_to_idx = {token: idx for idx, token in enumerate(
        vocab.idx_to_token)}
    bert = d2l.BERTModel(len(vocab), num_hiddens, norm_shape=[256],
                         ffn_num_input=256, ffn_num_hiddens=ffn_num_hiddens,
                         num_heads=4, num_layers=2, dropout=0.2,
                         max_len=max_len, key_size=256, query_size=256,
                         value_size=256, hid_in_features=256,
                         mlm_in_features=256, nsp_in_features=256)
    # Load pretrained BERT parameters
    bert.load_state_dict(torch.load(os.path.join(data_dir,
                                                 'pretrained.params')))
    return bert, vocab

To facilitate demonstration on most of machines, we will load and fine-tune the small version ("bert.small") of the pretrained BERT in this section. In the exercise, we will show how to fine-tune the much larger "bert.base" to significantly improve the testing accuracy.

#@tab all
devices = d2l.try_all_gpus()
bert, vocab = load_pretrained_model(
    'bert.small', num_hiddens=256, ffn_num_hiddens=512, num_heads=4,
    num_layers=2, dropout=0.1, max_len=512, devices=devices)

The Dataset for Fine-Tuning BERT

For the downstream task natural language inference on the SNLI dataset, we define a customized dataset class SNLIBERTDataset. In each example, the premise and hypothesis form a pair of text sequence and is packed into one BERT input sequence as depicted in :numref:fig_bert-two-seqs. Recall :numref:subsec_bert_input_rep that segment IDs are used to distinguish the premise and the hypothesis in a BERT input sequence. With the predefined maximum length of a BERT input sequence (max_len), the last token of the longer of the input text pair keeps getting removed until max_len is met. To accelerate generation of the SNLI dataset for fine-tuning BERT, we use 4 worker processes to generate training or testing examples in parallel.

class SNLIBERTDataset(gluon.data.Dataset):
    def __init__(self, dataset, max_len, vocab=None):
        all_premise_hypothesis_tokens = [[
            p_tokens, h_tokens] for p_tokens, h_tokens in zip(
            *[d2l.tokenize([s.lower() for s in sentences])
              for sentences in dataset[:2]])]
        
        self.labels = np.array(dataset[2])
        self.vocab = vocab
        self.max_len = max_len
        (self.all_token_ids, self.all_segments,
         self.valid_lens) = self._preprocess(all_premise_hypothesis_tokens)
        print('read ' + str(len(self.all_token_ids)) + ' examples')

    def _preprocess(self, all_premise_hypothesis_tokens):
        pool = multiprocessing.Pool(4)  # Use 4 worker processes
        out = pool.map(self._mp_worker, all_premise_hypothesis_tokens)
        all_token_ids = [
            token_ids for token_ids, segments, valid_len in out]
        all_segments = [segments for token_ids, segments, valid_len in out]
        valid_lens = [valid_len for token_ids, segments, valid_len in out]
        return (np.array(all_token_ids, dtype='int32'),
                np.array(all_segments, dtype='int32'), 
                np.array(valid_lens))

    def _mp_worker(self, premise_hypothesis_tokens):
        p_tokens, h_tokens = premise_hypothesis_tokens
        self._truncate_pair_of_tokens(p_tokens, h_tokens)
        tokens, segments = d2l.get_tokens_and_segments(p_tokens, h_tokens)
        token_ids = self.vocab[tokens] + [self.vocab['<pad>']] \
                             * (self.max_len - len(tokens))
        segments = segments + [0] * (self.max_len - len(segments))
        valid_len = len(tokens)
        return token_ids, segments, valid_len

    def _truncate_pair_of_tokens(self, p_tokens, h_tokens):
        # Reserve slots for '<CLS>', '<SEP>', and '<SEP>' tokens for the BERT
        # input
        while len(p_tokens) + len(h_tokens) > self.max_len - 3:
            if len(p_tokens) > len(h_tokens):
                p_tokens.pop()
            else:
                h_tokens.pop()

    def __getitem__(self, idx):
        return (self.all_token_ids[idx], self.all_segments[idx],
                self.valid_lens[idx]), self.labels[idx]

    def __len__(self):
        return len(self.all_token_ids)

#@tab pytorch
class SNLIBERTDataset(torch.utils.data.Dataset):
    def __init__(self, dataset, max_len, vocab=None):
        all_premise_hypothesis_tokens = [[
            p_tokens, h_tokens] for p_tokens, h_tokens in zip(
            *[d2l.tokenize([s.lower() for s in sentences])
              for sentences in dataset[:2]])]
        
        self.labels = torch.tensor(dataset[2])
        self.vocab = vocab
        self.max_len = max_len
        (self.all_token_ids, self.all_segments,
         self.valid_lens) = self._preprocess(all_premise_hypothesis_tokens)
        print('read ' + str(len(self.all_token_ids)) + ' examples')

    def _preprocess(self, all_premise_hypothesis_tokens):
        pool = multiprocessing.Pool(4)  # Use 4 worker processes
        out = pool.map(self._mp_worker, all_premise_hypothesis_tokens)
        all_token_ids = [
            token_ids for token_ids, segments, valid_len in out]
        all_segments = [segments for token_ids, segments, valid_len in out]
        valid_lens = [valid_len for token_ids, segments, valid_len in out]
        return (torch.tensor(all_token_ids, dtype=torch.long),
                torch.tensor(all_segments, dtype=torch.long), 
                torch.tensor(valid_lens))

    def _mp_worker(self, premise_hypothesis_tokens):
        p_tokens, h_tokens = premise_hypothesis_tokens
        self._truncate_pair_of_tokens(p_tokens, h_tokens)
        tokens, segments = d2l.get_tokens_and_segments(p_tokens, h_tokens)
        token_ids = self.vocab[tokens] + [self.vocab['<pad>']] \
                             * (self.max_len - len(tokens))
        segments = segments + [0] * (self.max_len - len(segments))
        valid_len = len(tokens)
        return token_ids, segments, valid_len

    def _truncate_pair_of_tokens(self, p_tokens, h_tokens):
        # Reserve slots for '<CLS>', '<SEP>', and '<SEP>' tokens for the BERT
        # input
        while len(p_tokens) + len(h_tokens) > self.max_len - 3:
            if len(p_tokens) > len(h_tokens):
                p_tokens.pop()
            else:
                h_tokens.pop()

    def __getitem__(self, idx):
        return (self.all_token_ids[idx], self.all_segments[idx],
                self.valid_lens[idx]), self.labels[idx]

    def __len__(self):
        return len(self.all_token_ids)

After downloading the SNLI dataset, we generate training and testing examples by instantiating the SNLIBERTDataset class. Such examples will be read in minibatches during training and testing of natural language inference.

# Reduce `batch_size` if there is an out of memory error. In the original BERT
# model, `max_len` = 512
batch_size, max_len, num_workers = 512, 128, d2l.get_dataloader_workers()
data_dir = d2l.download_extract('SNLI')
train_set = SNLIBERTDataset(d2l.read_snli(data_dir, True), max_len, vocab)
test_set = SNLIBERTDataset(d2l.read_snli(data_dir, False), max_len, vocab)
train_iter = gluon.data.DataLoader(train_set, batch_size, shuffle=True,
                                   num_workers=num_workers)
test_iter = gluon.data.DataLoader(test_set, batch_size,
                                  num_workers=num_workers)

#@tab pytorch
# Reduce `batch_size` if there is an out of memory error. In the original BERT
# model, `max_len` = 512
batch_size, max_len, num_workers = 512, 128, d2l.get_dataloader_workers()
data_dir = d2l.download_extract('SNLI')
train_set = SNLIBERTDataset(d2l.read_snli(data_dir, True), max_len, vocab)
test_set = SNLIBERTDataset(d2l.read_snli(data_dir, False), max_len, vocab)
train_iter = torch.utils.data.DataLoader(train_set, batch_size, shuffle=True,
                                   num_workers=num_workers)
test_iter = torch.utils.data.DataLoader(test_set, batch_size,
                                  num_workers=num_workers)

Fine-Tuning BERT

As :numref:fig_bert-two-seqs indicates, fine-tuning BERT for natural language inference requires only an extra MLP consisting of two fully connected layers (see self.hidden and self.output in the following BERTClassifier class). This MLP transforms the BERT representation of the special “<cls>” token, which encodes the information of both the premise and the hypothesis, into three outputs of natural language inference: entailment, contradiction, and neutral.

class BERTClassifier(nn.Block):
    def __init__(self, bert):
        super(BERTClassifier, self).__init__()
        self.encoder = bert.encoder
        self.hidden = bert.hidden
        self.output = nn.Dense(3)

    def forward(self, inputs):
        tokens_X, segments_X, valid_lens_x = inputs
        encoded_X = self.encoder(tokens_X, segments_X, valid_lens_x)
        return self.output(self.hidden(encoded_X[:, 0, :]))

#@tab pytorch
class BERTClassifier(nn.Module):
    def __init__(self, bert):
        super(BERTClassifier, self).__init__()
        self.encoder = bert.encoder
        self.hidden = bert.hidden
        self.output = nn.Linear(256, 3)

    def forward(self, inputs):
        tokens_X, segments_X, valid_lens_x = inputs
        encoded_X = self.encoder(tokens_X, segments_X, valid_lens_x)
        return self.output(self.hidden(encoded_X[:, 0, :]))

In the following, the pretrained BERT model bert is fed into the BERTClassifier instance net for the downstream application. In common implementations of BERT fine-tuning, only the parameters of the output layer of the additional MLP (net.output) will be learned from scratch. All the parameters of the pretrained BERT encoder (net.encoder) and the hidden layer of the additional MLP (net.hidden) will be fine-tuned.

net = BERTClassifier(bert)
net.output.initialize(ctx=devices)

#@tab pytorch
net = BERTClassifier(bert)

Recall that in :numref:sec_bert both the MaskLM class and the NextSentencePred class have parameters in their employed MLPs. These parameters are part of those in the pretrained BERT model bert, and thus part of parameters in net. However, such parameters are only for computing the masked language modeling loss and the next sentence prediction loss during pretraining. These two loss functions are irrelevant to fine-tuning downstream applications, thus the parameters of the employed MLPs in MaskLM and NextSentencePred are not updated (staled) when BERT is fine-tuned.

To allow parameters with stale gradients, the flag ignore_stale_grad=True is set in the step function of d2l.train_batch_ch13. We use this function to train and evaluate the model net using the training set (train_iter) and the testing set (test_iter) of SNLI. Due to the limited computational resources, the training and testing accuracy can be further improved: we leave its discussions in the exercises.

lr, num_epochs = 1e-4, 5
trainer = gluon.Trainer(net.collect_params(), 'adam', {'learning_rate': lr})
loss = gluon.loss.SoftmaxCrossEntropyLoss()
d2l.train_ch13(net, train_iter, test_iter, loss, trainer, num_epochs, devices,
               d2l.split_batch_multi_inputs)

#@tab pytorch
lr, num_epochs = 1e-4, 5
trainer = torch.optim.Adam(net.parameters(), lr=lr)
loss = nn.CrossEntropyLoss(reduction='none')
d2l.train_ch13(net, train_iter, test_iter, loss, trainer, num_epochs, devices)

Summary

• We can fine-tune the pretrained BERT model for downstream applications, such as natural language inference on the SNLI dataset.
• During fine-tuning, the BERT model becomes part of the model for the downstream application. Parameters that are only related to pretraining loss will not be updated during fine-tuning.

Exercises

1. Fine-tune a much larger pretrained BERT model that is about as big as the original BERT base model if your computational resource allows. Set arguments in the load_pretrained_model function as: replacing 'bert.small' with 'bert.base', increasing values of num_hiddens=256, ffn_num_hiddens=512, num_heads=4, and num_layers=2 to 768, 3072, 12, and 12, respectively. By increasing fine-tuning epochs (and possibly tuning other hyperparameters), can you get a testing accuracy higher than 0.86?
2. How to truncate a pair of sequences according to their ratio of length? Compare this pair truncation method and the one used in the SNLIBERTDataset class. What are their pros and cons?

:begin_tab:mxnet Discussions :end_tab:

:begin_tab:pytorch Discussions :end_tab: