{
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    "topic_id": "context-compression",
    "name": "Context compression",
    "definition": "Compress an instruction or context once and reuse the result across calls.",
    "record_count": 2,
    "topic_url": "https://programasweights.com/reading-list/guides/compilation/#context-compression",
    "source_url": "https://programasweights.com/reading-list/data/papers.json"
  },
  "comparisons": [
    {
      "title": "What gets reused?",
      "text": "Gisting caches a few instruction activations. Generative Adapter stores context in parameter updates. PAW saves a function as a program containing text and a neural module.",
      "source_ids": [
        "2304.08467",
        "2411.05877",
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    {
      "id": "2304.08467",
      "title": "Learning to Compress Prompts with Gist Tokens",
      "authors": "Jesse Mu, Xiang Lisa Li, Noah Goodman",
      "first_public": "2023-04-17",
      "first_public_source": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.08467",
      "arxiv_first_submission": "2023-04-17",
      "date_label": "arXiv v1",
      "arxiv": "2304.08467",
      "paper_url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.08467",
      "venue": "NeurIPS 2023",
      "lens": [
        "context-compression"
      ],
      "related_terms": [
        "gist tokens",
        "prompt compression",
        "activation caching",
        "amortized inference"
      ],
      "summary": "Compresses an instruction into a few reusable token activations.",
      "contribution": "Trains with an attention mask that forces later tokens to use gist activations in place of the original prompt.",
      "limitations": "Compression can reduce output quality. The cached activations are tied to the trained model.",
      "program_form": "Cached activations at a few gist-token positions.",
      "conditioning": "The instruction or prompt.",
      "execution": "The language model generates outputs while attending to the cached gist.",
      "relationship": "PAW cites gisting as another way to reuse instruction computation. Gisting stores activations; PAW stores a program with text and adaptation parameters.",
      "relationship_source": "https://arxiv.org/html/2607.02512v1#S10",
      "provenance": "arXiv record and paper.",
      "author_names": [
        "Jesse Mu",
        "Xiang Lisa Li",
        "Noah Goodman"
      ],
      "record_url": "https://programasweights.com/reading-list/papers/2304.08467/",
      "legacy_record_url": "https://programasweights.com/reading-list/papers/#paper-2304-08467",
      "citation_date": "2023-04-17",
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      "markdown_url": "https://programasweights.com/reading-list/papers/2304.08467/index.md",
      "bibtex_url": "https://programasweights.com/reading-list/papers/2304.08467/citation.bib",
      "csl_url": "https://programasweights.com/reading-list/papers/2304.08467/citation.csl.json",
      "publication": {
        "title": "Learning to Compress Prompts with Gist Tokens",
        "author_names": [
          "Jesse Mu",
          "Xiang Li",
          "Noah Goodman"
        ],
        "year": 2023,
        "type": "paper-conference",
        "container_title": "Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems",
        "url": "https://proceedings.neurips.cc/paper_files/paper/2023/hash/3d77c6dcc7f143aa2154e7f4d5e22d68-Abstract-Conference.html",
        "source_url": "https://proceedings.neurips.cc/paper_files/paper/2023/hash/3d77c6dcc7f143aa2154e7f4d5e22d68-Abstract-Conference.html",
        "verified_at": "2026-10-19",
        "volume": "36",
        "doi": "10.52202/075280-0848",
        "pages": "19327-19352"
      },
      "publication_bibtex_url": "https://programasweights.com/reading-list/papers/2304.08467/publication.bib",
      "publication_csl_url": "https://programasweights.com/reading-list/papers/2304.08467/publication.csl.json",
      "method_comparisons": [
        {
          "title": "What gets reused?",
          "text": "Gisting caches a few instruction activations. Generative Adapter stores context in parameter updates. PAW saves a function as a program containing text and a neural module.",
          "source_ids": [
            "2304.08467",
            "2411.05877",
            "2607.02512"
          ],
          "source_urls": [
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    },
    {
      "id": "2411.05877",
      "title": "Generative Adapter: Contextualizing Language Models in Parameters with A Single Forward Pass",
      "authors": "Tong Chen, Hao Fang, Patrick Xia, Xiaodong Liu, Benjamin Van Durme, Luke Zettlemoyer, Jianfeng Gao, Hao Cheng",
      "first_public": "2024-11-08",
      "first_public_source": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.05877",
      "arxiv_first_submission": "2024-11-08",
      "date_label": "arXiv v1",
      "arxiv": "2411.05877",
      "paper_url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.05877",
      "venue": "ICLR 2025",
      "lens": [
        "generated-adapters",
        "context-compression"
      ],
      "related_terms": [
        "Generative Adapter",
        "contextualization",
        "fast weights",
        "streaming context"
      ],
      "summary": "Converts new context into low-rank model updates in one forward pass.",
      "contribution": "Trains an adapter generator with self-supervision. Tests learning from documents, demonstrations, and conversation history.",
      "limitations": "The adapter generator is tied to its frozen base model.",
      "program_form": "Additive low-rank adapters.",
      "conditioning": "Documents, demonstrations, or conversation history, including successive chunks of context.",
      "execution": "The adapted model answers new inputs using context stored in its parameter updates.",
      "relationship": "PAW cites this context-to-adapter method. Generative Adapter stores information from context; PAW compiles the behavior of a function.",
      "relationship_source": "https://arxiv.org/html/2607.02512v1#S10",
      "provenance": "arXiv record and paper.",
      "first_public_note": "An AFM 2024 OpenReview version appeared before the first arXiv submission.",
      "author_names": [
        "Tong Chen",
        "Hao Fang",
        "Patrick Xia",
        "Xiaodong Liu",
        "Benjamin Van Durme",
        "Luke Zettlemoyer",
        "Jianfeng Gao",
        "Hao Cheng"
      ],
      "record_url": "https://programasweights.com/reading-list/papers/2411.05877/",
      "legacy_record_url": "https://programasweights.com/reading-list/papers/#paper-2411-05877",
      "citation_date": "2024-11-08",
      "json_url": "https://programasweights.com/reading-list/papers/2411.05877/record.json",
      "markdown_url": "https://programasweights.com/reading-list/papers/2411.05877/index.md",
      "bibtex_url": "https://programasweights.com/reading-list/papers/2411.05877/citation.bib",
      "csl_url": "https://programasweights.com/reading-list/papers/2411.05877/citation.csl.json",
      "publication": {
        "title": "Generative Adapter: Contextualizing Language Models in Parameters with A Single Forward Pass",
        "author_names": [
          "Tong Chen",
          "Hao Fang",
          "Patrick Xia",
          "Xiaodong Liu",
          "Benjamin Van Durme",
          "Luke Zettlemoyer",
          "Jianfeng Gao",
          "Hao Cheng"
        ],
        "year": 2025,
        "type": "paper-conference",
        "container_title": "International Conference on Learning Representations",
        "url": "https://openreview.net/forum?id=bc3sUsS6ck",
        "source_url": "https://openreview.net/pdf?id=bc3sUsS6ck",
        "verified_at": "2026-10-19"
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      "publication_bibtex_url": "https://programasweights.com/reading-list/papers/2411.05877/publication.bib",
      "publication_csl_url": "https://programasweights.com/reading-list/papers/2411.05877/publication.csl.json",
      "method_comparisons": [
        {
          "title": "What gets reused?",
          "text": "Gisting caches a few instruction activations. Generative Adapter stores context in parameter updates. PAW saves a function as a program containing text and a neural module.",
          "source_ids": [
            "2304.08467",
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          "topic_label": "Context compression",
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}
