CourseTransformers: From Attention to Trained, Served and Interpreted Models · Module 12: Adaptation and Alignment · part 90 of 111
Part 90 · Module 12: Adaptation and Alignment

Lesson 3: Training a small adapter instead of the whole model

27 min read·13 Oct 2026
Module 12 · Lesson 3 · About 60 minutes · Needs: Lesson 1 (the card format, score_cards, sft_example, the 448-character window); Lesson 2 helps but is not required

The situation

Sol 441 at Aurora Station. Maya Lindqvist still wants her four-field log cards. Hana Aoki, the Compute Officer, asks a sharper question: if every crew request gets its own fine-tuned copy of base, how many copies does the station store, and what does each one break?

This lesson freezes base and trains a small add-on instead: an adapter. The running example is log 5190: Omar Winters rerouted the airlock motor in the comms mast.

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This course is bought on its own, once, and stays readable afterwards, including the parts added to it later.