How do you set the number of epochs for FineTune.create on ChatGPT?

[alexorona]

Describe the bug

I can fine-tune gpt-3.5-turbo just fine, but it looks like there's no way to change the number of epochs to something over than 10, even though the Guides recommend indicate that you can ("If the model becomes less diverse than expected decrease the number by 1 or 2 epochs"). It seems to be over training quite a bit. Past experience is that most LLMs just need 1-2 epochs.

There doesn't seem to be an actual argument that can be passed to FineTune.create to change the number of training epochs. I've fine-tuned davinic-003 before with the parameter n_epochs, but it doesn't seem to work with ChatGPT fine-tuning. There's no reference in help(FineTune.create) to epochs and passing epochs, n_epochs to FineTune.create yields extra fields not permitted.

Running it through openai api fine_tunes.create also doesn't permit specification of epochs. Am I missing something?

To Reproduce

1. Format and upload a dataset
2. Create a training job using the Python SDK with FineTuningJob.create passing an argument to change the number of epochs

Code snippets

No response

OS

Ubuntu 20.04

Python version

Python 3.7.5

Library version

openai-python 0.27.9

[microsoftbuild]

@alexorona

In the updated API reference, you can see that the n_epochs hyperparam exists.

The reason that it's not shown in most examples is because it defaults to auto.

However, you should be simply able to specify a value for n_epochs in the openai.FineTuningJob.create function.

[wramalho]

Trying to use openai.FineTuningJob.create with n_epochs set to any value returns InvalidRequestError: invalid n_epochs: <value>, extra fields not permitted

E.g. Running the following code without n_epochs works:

n_epochs = 5
model = "babbage-002"
response = openai.FineTuningJob.create(training_file=training_file_id, model=model, validation_file=validation_file_id, suffix="babbage-test", n_epochs=n_epochs)

job_id = response["id"]

print("Job ID:", response["id"])
print("Status:", response["status"])

[wramalho]

Solution:

The newer FineTuningJob.create unlike the previous FineTune.create must be specified as:

openai.FineTuningJob.create([...], hyperparameters={"n_epochs":value, })

[microsoftbuild]

Glad that it's solved now. @logankilpatrick please update this example in the docs/API reference.

[eunos-1128]

@wramalho

openai.FineTuningJob.create([...], hyperparameters={"n_epochs":value, })

It worked for me. Thanks!

[logankilpatrick]

Sorry for the delay, deploying a fix now, should be live: https://platform.openai.com/docs/api-reference/fine-tuning/create in 2 or 3 minutes!

[alexorona]

Thank you! Will try it out soon!