Welcome! This internal repository contains all the assets for the CRFM/Mercury benchmarking project. There are two related parts:

1. Proxy (src/proxy): provides a unified way to access major language models.
2. Benchmarking (see src/benchmark): evaluates such language models.

Setup

To install any dependencies (into venv):

./pre-commit.sh

Proxy access to language models

We provide a single unified entry point into accessing large language models (e.g., GPT-3, Jurassic). This provides both a web interface and a REST API.

Using (for most people)

To use the web interface, go to https://crfm-models.stanford.edu.

To use the REST API, see demo.py.

Deploying locally (for developers)

Create prod_env/credentials.conf to contain the API keys for any language models you have access to.

openaiApiKey: ...
ai21ApiKey: ...

To start a local server (go to http://localhost:1959 to try it out):

venv/bin/proxy-server

Deploying to production (for maintainers)

The production version of the proxy is running on crfm-models.stanford.edu; you need to get permission to get ssh access.

One-time setup

This is done, but just for the record:

laptop:$ ssh crfm-models.stanford.edu
crfm-models:$ cd /home
crfm-models:$ git clone [email protected]:stanford-crfm/benchmarking
crfm-models:$ cd benchmarking
crfm-models:$ mkdir prod_env
crfm-models:$ echo '{"api_key": "crfm"}' > prod_env/accounts.jsonl
laptop:$ rsync -arvz prod_env/credentials.conf crfm-models.stanford.edu:/home/benchmarking/prod_env

Perspective API

We use Google's Perspective API to calculate the toxicity of completions. To send requests to PerspectiveAPI, we need to generate an API key from GCP. Follow the Get Started guide to request the service and the Enable the API guide to generate the API key. Once you have a valid API key, add an entry to credentials.conf:

perspectiveApiKey: <Generated API key>

By default, Perspective API allows only 1 query per second. Fill out this form to increase the request quota.

The current API key we are using in production was created with the hai-gcp-models account and allows 100 queries per second. The API key expires on 4/15/2022.

SSL

The SSL certificate, CSR and private key for crfm-models.stanford.edu is stored at /home/ssl. The current SSL certificate expires on 12/30/2022.

To renew the SSL certificate, follow these steps:

1. Fill out this form:

   1. Log on with your SUNet ID. You must be an admin in order to submit a request.
   2. For Server Name, put crfm-models.stanford.edu.
   3. For Server type, select OTHER.
   4. For Contact group/mailman address, enter your Stanford email address.
   5. Under Copy and paste your CSR, paste the content of /home/ssl/public.csr.
   6. Leave the optional fields blank and click Submit.
   7. You should receive your certificate by email within 2 business days.

2. Once you receive the SSL cert, concatenate the contents of X509 Certificate only, Base64 encoded with the contents of X509 Intermediates/root only Reverse, Base64 encoded and place it at path /home/ssl/crfm-models.crt. crfm-models.crt should look something like this:

    -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
    (Your Primary SSL certificate: .crt)
    -----END CERTIFICATE-----
    -----BEGIN CERTIFICATE-----
    (Your Intermediate certificate: reversed.crt)
    -----END CERTIFICATE-----
   

3. Restart the server.

4. Open the website in a browser and verify the connection is secure.

Misplaced private key or CSR

If, for whatever reason, the private key or CSR is misplaced, generate new ones by running:

sudo openssl req -new -nodes -newkey rsa:2048 -keyout private.key -out public.csr

and fill out the form:

Country Name (2 letter code) [AU]:US
State or Province Name (full name) [Some-State]:California
Locality Name (eg, city) []:Stanford
Organization Name (eg, company) [Internet Widgits Pty Ltd]:Stanford University
Organizational Unit Name (eg, section) []:CRFM
Common Name (e.g. server FQDN or YOUR name) []:crfm-models.stanford.edu
Email Address []:

Please enter the following 'extra' attributes
to be sent with your certificate request
A challenge password []:
An optional company name []:

Then, follow the steps above to request for a new SSL certificate.

Every time we need to deploy:

Update the code:

laptop:$ ssh crfm-models.stanford.edu
crfm-models:$ cd /home/benchmarking
crfm-models:$ git pull
crfm-models:$ ./pre-commit.sh

If everything looks okay:

# Switch into the screen session
crfm-models:$ gos bench

# Hit ctrl-c to kill the existing process

sudo venv/bin/proxy-server -p 443 --ssl-key-file /home/ssl/private.key --ssl-cert-file /home/ssl/crfm-models.crt

Double check that the website still works.

Benchmarking

Code structure

Here's a birds-eye view of how the benchmarking process interacts with the main classes (see benchmark):

• A Scenario (given by a ScenarioSpec) specifies a task and a data distribution. It specifies a set of Instances, where each Instance has an input (e.g., question) and a set of Reference outputs (e.g., multiple choice answers).

• A DataPreprocessor takes in a Scenario and produces a list of Instances Each Instance is given a unique ID. The set of Instances is augmented according to DataAugmenterSpec.

• An Adapter (given by an AdaptationSpec) takes a list of Instances and adapts it to a set of Requests to the API (e.g., the model, temperature, number of in-context training examples). Formally, the output is a ScenarioState containing a set of RequestStates, where each RequestState consists of a Request and any metadata used to track the role of this Request (e.g., the relevant Instance and Reference).

• An Executor (given by an ExecutionSpec) executes each Request in the RequestState to produce a RequestResult for each one; everything is encapsulated in a ScenarioState.

• A Metric (given by a MetricSpec) takes a ScenarioState containing RequestResultss and produces a set of Stats (e.g., accuracy, accuracy@5, toxicity, bias, etc.).

• A Runner is the top-level controller that runs the above steps and is driven by a set of RunSpecs.

There are three types of classes:

• Specifications (e.g., AdapterSpec, ExecutionSpec, RunSpec): specified manually by the user. Note that Scenario and Metric are subclassed, so they are constructed by ObjectSpec, which specifies the subclass name and a free-form dictionary of arguments.
• States (e.g., Instance, ScenarioState, Request, RequestResult): these are automatically generated and can be serialized.
• Controllers (e.g., Scenario, Adapter, Executor, Metric, Runner): these have the bulk of the code and should not be serialized.

Data Augmentations

To apply data augmentation, create a DataAugmenterSpec with a list of PerturbationSpecs and pass it into RunSpec. The following is an example:

    data_augmenter_spec = DataAugmenterSpec(
        perturbation_specs=[
            PerturbationSpec(
                class_name="benchmark.augmentations.perturbation.ExtraSpacePerturbation", 
                args={"num_spaces": 5},
            )
        ],
        should_perturb_references=False,
        should_augment_train_instances=False,
        should_include_original_train=False,
        should_augment_eval_instances=True,
        should_include_original_eval=True,
    )
    run_spec = RunSpec(
        ...
        data_augmenter_spec=data_augmenter_spec
    )

In the example above, the DataPreprocessor will augment the set of evaluation instances by perturbing the original set of instances with the ExtraSpacePerturbation, where spaces in the text are replaced with num_spaces number of spaces.

We currently only support applying a single perturbation to an instance instead of chaining multiple perturbations and applying it onto a single instance.

Adding a new perturbation

To add a new perturbation to the framework, create a new file at src/benchmark/augmentations with the name <Name of perturbation>_perturbation.py e.g., typo_perturbation.py. Inside the file, create a new class (name it <Name of the perturbation>Perturbation e.g., TypoPerturbation) that extends the abstract class Perturbation and implement the perturb method which takes in text and outputs the perturbed text. Add your new perturbation to src/benchmark/__init__.py. Add a test for the new perturbation in test_perturbation.py.

Running the benchmark

Examples of running the benchmark:

venv/bin/benchmark-run
venv/bin/benchmark-run -r mmlu:subject=philosophy
venv/bin/benchmark-run -r synthetic_reasoning_natural:difficulty=easy
venv/bin/benchmark-run -r twitter_aae:demographic=aa
venv/bin/benchmark-run -r copyright:pilot_study=true
venv/bin/benchmark-run -r disinformation:capability=reiteration
venv/bin/benchmark-run -r wiki:k=2,subject=P31
venv/bin/benchmark-run -r code:dataset=APPS
venv/bin/benchmark-run -r the_pile:subset=OpenSubtitles
venv/bin/benchmark-run -r wiki:subject=P31
venv/bin/benchmark-run -r raft:subset=ade_corpus_v2
venv/bin/benchmark-run -r natural_qa:mode=closedbook
venv/bin/benchmark-run -r quac
venv/bin/benchmark-run -r wikitext_103
venv/bin/benchmark-run -r blimp:phenomenon=irregular_forms
venv/bin/benchmark-run -r news_qa
venv/bin/benchmark-run -r imdb
venv/bin/benchmark-run -r imdb_contrast_sets

You can also run the benchmark using a local proxy, in which case you have to first start a local server (see instructions above for more details).

To estimate token usage

To estimate token usage without making any requests, append the --dry-run option:

venv/bin/benchmark-run -r <RunSpec to estimate token usage> --dry-run

For example, running venv/bin/benchmark-run -r real_toxicity_prompts --dry-run outputs:

  Stats {
    openai/davinci_estimated_number_of_tokens[min=505.000, mean=514.957, max=536.000, sum=514957.000 (1000)]
  }

where sum indicates the estimated total number of tokens used for the specific RunSpec.

For the OpenAI models, we use a GPT-2 Tokenizer to estimate the token usage. The tokenizer will be downloaded and cached when running a dry run.

Final benchmarking (Infrastructure team only)

1. Running all the RunSpecs can take a long time, so use SCDT: ssh scdt.
2. Create a screen session: screen -S benchmarking.
3. Go to the source code directory: cd /u/scr/nlp/crfm/benchmarking/benchmarking. We have 700 GB of disk space total on /u/scr/nlp/crfm.
4. Pull the latest changes: git pull.
5. Activate the Conda environment: conda activate crfm_benchmarking
   1. Run pip install -e . if there are new dependencies to install.
6. Run the benchmark-present command e.g., benchmark-present --max-eval-instances 10 --conf src/benchmark/presentation/run_specs.conf.
7. Exit the screen session: ctrl+ad.
8. To check on the screen session: screen -r benchmarking.

To visualize results at crfm-models.stanford.edu

1. Run venv/bin/benchmark-present --output-path src/proxy/static/benchmark_output.
2. Visit the benchmarking status page.

Contributing

One-time setup

To contribute to this project, install the dependencies and git hook scripts:

./pre-commit.sh && pre-commit install

Tests

To run all unit tests:

python -m pytest

Append -vv to output the full diff and results:

python -m pytest -vv

To run a specific file, simply specify the path:

python -m pytest <path/to/file> -vv