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fix: stabilize deep recurrence (T>=32) and correct scaling strategy#80

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fix: stabilize deep recurrence (T>=32) and correct scaling strategy#80
skyhighbg22-jpg wants to merge 1 commit into
kyegomez:mainfrom
skyhighbg22-jpg:fix/recurrent-depth-stabilization

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Summary

Fixes five compounding training instabilities triggered by the non-linear recurrent iteration scaling (1B:16 -> 1T:64) and corrects the scaling strategy for trillion-parameter regimes.

Problem

The original 64-loop design at dim=16384 triggers:

  • Residual drift -- 64 unnormalized transformer_out terms compound, pushing the hidden state out of its useful encoding region
  • Norm explosion -- residual stream grows as O(sqrt(T)), reaching ~8x initial magnitude at T=64
  • Gradient circulation -- 64 unrolled steps through shared weights amplifies the dominant Jacobian eigenvector exponentially
  • Representation collapse -- sinusoidal loop-index embedding only covers dim//8 channels (12.5%)
  • Compute synchronization -- ACT halted positions still require full loop execution with KV cache

Solution -- Five Stabilization Mechanisms

  1. Recurrent state normalization -- RMSNorm after every LTI injection step bounds residual magnitude
  2. Stochastic depth recurrence -- linearly increasing dropout with depth breaks gradient circulation (training-only, dtype-matched for mixed-precision)
  3. ACT ponder cost regularization -- penalizes total steps per position; model._last_ponder_cost added to LM loss
  4. Learned iteration embeddings -- nn.Embedding table covers all dim channels per iteration, preventing representation collapse; clamps for depth extrapolation
  5. muP initialization -- width-dependent scaling (1/width for head, 1/sqrt(width) for hidden layers) enables hyperparameter transfer across scales

Corrected Scaling

Variant Old loops New loops Stabilization
1B-3B 16 16 learned embed, ponder
10B 24 24 + stochastic depth (0.05), muP
50B-100B 32 32 + stochastic depth (0.10)
500B 48 40 + stochastic depth (0.15)
1T 64 48 + stochastic depth (0.15)

Depth extrapolation to 64+ loops at inference preserved via embedding clamping.

Additional Fixes

  • Initialize _last_ponder_cost in __init__ to prevent AttributeError
  • muP: only head gets 1/width; attention .wo and FFN down correctly get 1/sqrt(width) as hidden layers
  • Tests: slice freqs_cis[:T] in standalone attention/block tests (pre-existing RoPE dimension mismatch)
  • LTI test: use <= 1.0 + 1e-6 for spectral radius after large gradient step (float precision boundary)

Testing

82/82 tests passing. All new components verified:

  • TestLearnedIterationEmbedding (4 tests)
  • TestStochasticDepthRecurrence (3 tests)
  • TestMupInit (3 tests)
  • TestRecurrentBlock extended (5 new tests)
  • All pre-existing tests updated and passing

Files Changed

  • open_mythos/main.py -- +218 lines (new classes + RecurrentBlock refactor + muP)
  • open_mythos/variants.py -- +94 lines (corrected scaling + stabilization params)
  • open_mythos/__init__.py -- +2 lines (export LearnedIterationEmbedding)
  • tests/test_main.py -- +174 lines (20 new tests + pre-existing test fixes)

Problem:
The original recurrent iteration scaling (1B:16, 10B:24, 50B:32, 1T:64)
triggers five compounding pathologies at high iteration counts:

- Residual drift: transformer_out accumulates without norm control over
  64 steps, pushing the hidden state out of its useful encoding region
- Norm explosion: residual stream grows as O(sqrt(T)), reaching ~8x its
  initial magnitude at T=64
- Gradient circulation: 64 unrolled steps through shared weights amplifies
  the dominant Jacobian eigenvector exponentially
- Representation collapse: sinusoidal loop-index embedding only covers
  dim//8 channels (12.5%), insufficient to differentiate 64 iterations
- Compute synchronization: ACT halted positions still require full loop
  execution with KV cache, wasting 75-87.5% of compute

Solution — five stabilization mechanisms:

1. Recurrent state normalization (RMSNorm after LTI injection):
   Bounds the residual stream magnitude across all iterations, preventing
   the O(sqrt(T)) norm growth that destabilizes deep recurrence.

2. Stochastic depth recurrence (training-only):
   Linearly increasing dropout probability with depth (0% at t=0 to
   recurrence_dropout at t=T-1). Breaks gradient circulation by creating
   shorter effective gradient paths and forces useful computation at every
   depth level. Mask dtype matches activation dtype for mixed-precision.

3. ACT with ponder cost regularization:
   Accumulates a per-position penalty on total steps taken, returned as a
   scalar alongside the output. Training loop adds model._last_ponder_cost
   to the LM loss. Encourages early halting for easy tokens.

4. Learned iteration embeddings (nn.Embedding table):
   Replaces sinusoidal loop-index embedding (dim//8 channels) with a
   learned embedding covering all dim channels. Each iteration receives a
   unique learned vector, forcing the shared transformer block to implement
   functionally distinct operations at each depth. Clamps to last trained
   embedding for depth extrapolation beyond max_loop_iters.

5. muP (maximal update parameterization) initialization:
   When mup_enabled=True, scales hidden layer weights by 1/sqrt(width_ratio)
   and the final logits projection (head) by 1/width_ratio. Ensures
   activation and gradient magnitudes remain stable across widths so
   hyperparameters transfer from a small base-width model.

Corrected scaling strategy:
- 1T: 64 -> 48 loops (reduced gradient path length by 25%)
- 500B: 48 -> 40 loops (17% shorter gradient path)
- All variants T>=20 get recurrence_dropout, learned embeddings, and
  ponder cost; T>=10B additionally get muP initialization
- Depth extrapolation to 64+ loops at inference preserved via embedding
  clamping

Additional fixes:
- Initialize _last_ponder_cost in OpenMythos.__init__ to prevent
  AttributeError if accessed before first forward()
- muP: only head gets 1/width scaling; all other linears (including
  attention wo and FFN down) correctly get 1/sqrt(width) as hidden layers
- Test fixes: slice freqs_cis[:T] in standalone attention/block tests
  to match how OpenMythos.forward() handles RoPE indexing
- LTI test: use <= 1.0+1e-6 for spectral radius check after large grad
  step (float precision boundary)

Tests: 82/82 passing (all new and pre-existing tests verified).
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