A Unified Framework for Model Editing

ROME and MEMIT are largely believed to be two different model editing algorithms, with the major difference between them being the ability to perform batched edits. In this paper, we unify these two algorithms under a single conceptual umbrella, optimizing for the same goal, which we call the preservation-memorization objective. ROME uses an equality constraint to optimize this objective to perform one edit at a time, whereas MEMIT employs a more flexible least-square constraint that allows for batched edits. We generalize ROME and enable batched editing with equality constraint in the form of EMMET - an Equality-constrained Mass Model Editing algorithm for Transformers, a new batched memory-editing algorithm. EMMET can perform batched-edits up to a batch-size of 10,000, with very similar performance to MEMIT across multiple dimensions. With the introduction of EMMET, we truly unify ROME and MEMIT and show that both algorithms are equivalent in terms of their optimization objective, their abilities (singular and batched editing), their model editing performance and their limitations.