Introduction to Notus
Notus is an innovative project developed by Argilla that focuses on creating finely tuned language models using various advanced refinement techniques. These models are designed to serve as digital assistants, enhancing the interactive experience in chat-like applications.
The Concept
The name "Notus" is inspired by Greek mythology, specifically borrowing from Notus, the god of the southern wind. This is a nod to their previous model Zephyr, which refers to the god of the western wind. The association with wind highlights the seamless, free-flowing nature of the assistance these models aim to provide.
Technical Approach
Notus uses a combination of methods such as SFT (Supervised Fine-Tuning), DPO (Distributional Preference Order), and other Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) techniques. The emphasis is on a data-first and human-centric development process, ensuring that the models are guided by human interactions and real-world data.
Performance and Evaluation
The Notus models are rigorously assessed through various benchmarks. These include Chat benchmarks like MT-Bench and AlpacaEval, and Academic benchmarks from the Open LLM Leaderboard. Such evaluations ensure that Notus can be effectively compared with other similar large language models (LLMs).
Community and Inspiration
The development of Notus has been possible thanks to contributions from the open-source community and resources available to the public. Notus particularly acknowledges the invaluable insights gained from collaborating with teams at HuggingFace, especially regarding alignment techniques.
Recent Updates
In December 2023, Notus released its version 7B v1, which brought significant improvements. This version employs a refined DPO fine-tuning strategy, resulting in better performance on AlpacaEval and LM Eval Harness benchmarks compared to its predecessor, Zephyr 7B Beta.
Resources and Tools
For those interested in exploring or engaging with Notus, there are resources readily available. The Notus models can be accessed on the HuggingFace Hub, where detailed information and tools are provided. Additionally, there is a Chat UI option powered by HuggingFace, offering a direct way to interact with the model.
Acknowledgments and Citations
Notus builds upon the foundational work presented in HuggingFace's "Alignment Handbook", and it is recommended to cite their contributions if utilizing this project for academic or research purposes. Similarly, the creators of Notus invite users to acknowledge their work in relevant projects.
By harnessing the power of community-driven innovation and mythology-inspired design, Notus sets a new standard in developing conversational AI tools tailored to human interaction.