Model Fusion via Neuron Transplantation

Ensemble learning is a widespread technique to improve the prediction performance of neural networks. However, it comes at the price of increased memory and inference time. In this work we propose a novel model fusion technique called Neuron Transplantation (NT) in which we fuse an ensemble of models by transplanting important neurons from all ensemble members into the vacant space obtained by pruning insignificant neurons. An initial loss in performance post-transplantation can be quickly recovered via fine-tuning, consistently outperforming individual ensemble members of the same model capacity and architecture. Furthermore, NT enables all the ensemble members to be jointly pruned and jointly trained in a combined model. Comparing it to alignment-based averaging (like Optimal-Transport-fusion), it requires less fine-tuning than the corresponding OT-fused model, the fusion itself is faster and requires less memory, while the resulting model performance is comparable or better. The code is available under the following link: https://github.com/masterbaer/neuron-transplantation.