mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Transporting Task Vectors across Different Architectures without Training

arXiv 2602.12952 ↗First posted 13 Feb 2026cs.LG cs.AI cs.CVcited by 4

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Abstract (arXiv)

Adapting large pre-trained models to downstream tasks often produces task-specific parameter updates that are expensive to relearn for every model variant. While recent work has shown that such updates can be transferred between models with identical architectures, transferring them across models of different widths remains unexplored. In this work, we introduce Theseus, a training-free method for transporting task updates across heterogeneous-width models. Rather than matching parameters, we characterize a task update by the functional effect it induces on intermediate representations. We formalize task-vector transport as a functional matching problem on observed activations and show that, after aligning representation spaces via orthogonal Procrustes analysis, it admits a stable closed-form solution that preserves the geometry of the update. We evaluate Theseus on vision and language models across different widths, showing consistent improvements over baselines without additional training or backpropagation. Our results show that task updates can be meaningfully transferred across architectures when task identity is defined functionally rather than parametrically. Code is available at https://github.com/apanariello4/merge-and-rebase.

Key facts. Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 39 of its 55 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 13 Feb 2026.

Builds on

39 of 55 references.

References · 39

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27 more
  1. 2017EuroSAT: A Novel Dataset and Deep Learning Benchmark for Land Use and Land Cover Classificationcited by 1,488
  2. 2022Model soups: averaging weights of multiple fine-tuned models improves accuracy without increasing inference timecited by 1,366
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  8. 2016Abstractive Text Summarization Using Sequence-to-Sequence RNNs and Beyondcited by 809
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  14. 2019Model Fusion via Optimal Transportcited by 217
  15. 2023ZipIt! Merging Models from Different Tasks without Trainingcited by 178
  16. 2022Relative representations enable zero-shot latent space communicationcited by 175
  17. 2024Task Singular Vectors: Reducing Task Interference in Model Mergingcited by 143
  18. 2021Generalized Shape Metrics on Neural Representationscited by 109
  19. 2025No Task Left Behind: Isotropic Model Merging with Common and Task-Specific Subspacescited by 90
  20. 2023Latent Space Translation via Semantic Alignmentcited by 46
  21. 2023Transformer Fusion with Optimal Transportcited by 35
  22. 2025Accurate and Efficient Low-Rank Model Merging in Core Spacecited by 28
  23. 2025Update Your Transformer to the Latest Release: Re-Basin of Task Vectorscited by 17
  24. 2024PLeaS -- Merging Models with Permutations and Least Squarescited by 16
  25. 2022Update Compression for Deep Neural Networks on the Edgecited by 6
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  27. 2025Boomerang Distillation Enables Zero-Shot Model Size Interpolationcited by 2

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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 4.

4 papers.