---
pipeline_tag: text-generation
---

# Orca 2

<!-- Provide a quick summary of what the model is/does. -->

In Orca 2, we continue exploring how improved training signals can give smaller LMs enhanced reasoning abilities, typically
found only in much larger models. We seek to teach small LMs to employ different solution
strategies for different tasks, potentially different from the one used by the
larger model. For example, while larger models might provide a direct answer
to a complex task, smaller models may not have the same capacity. In Orca
2, we teach the model various reasoning techniques (step-by-step, recall
then generate, recall-reason-generate, direct answer, etc.). More crucially,
we aim to help the model learn to determine the most effective solution
strategy for each task. Orca 2 models were trained by continual training of LLaMA-2 base models of the same size.


## Model Details

Refer to LLaMA-2 for details on model architectures.

## Uses


## Bias, Risks, and Limitations

Orca 2, built upon the LLaMA 2 model family, retains many of its limitations, as well as the
common limitations of other large language models or limitation including by its training
process, including:

**Data Biases**: Large language models, trained on extensive data, can inadvertently carry
biases present in the source data. Consequently, the models may generate outputs that could
be potentially biased or unfair.

**Lack of Contextual Understanding**: Despite their impressive capabilities in language understanding and generation, these models exhibit limited real-world understanding, resulting
in potential inaccuracies or nonsensical responses.

**Lack of Transparency**: Due to the complexity and size, large language models can act
as “black boxes”, making it difficult to comprehend the rationale behind specific outputs or
decisions. We recommend reviewing transparency notes from Azure for more information.

**Content Harms**: There are various types of content harms that large language models
can cause. It is important to be aware of them when using these models, and to take
actions to prevent them. It is recommended to leverage various content moderation services
provided by different companies and institutions. On an important note, we hope for better
regulations and standards from government and technology leaders around content harms
for AI technologies in future. We value and acknowledge the important role that research
and open source community can play in this direction.

**Hallucination**: It is important to be aware and cautious not to entirely rely on a given
language model for critical decisions or information that might have deep impact as it is
not obvious how to prevent these models from fabricating content. Moreover, it is not clear
whether small models may be more susceptible to hallucination in ungrounded generation
use cases due to their smaller sizes and hence reduced memorization capacities. This is an
active research topic and we hope there will be more rigorous measurement, understanding
and mitigations around this topic.

**Potential for Misuse**: Without suitable safeguards, there is a risk that these models could
be maliciously used for generating disinformation or harmful content.

**Data Distribution**: Orca 2’s performance is likely to correlate strongly with the distribution
of the tuning data. This correlation might limit its accuracy in areas underrepresented in
the training dataset such as math, coding, and reasoning.

**System messages**: Orca 2 demonstrates variance in performance depending on the system
instructions. Additionally, the stochasticity introduced by the model size may lead to
generation of non-deterministic responses to different system instructions.

**Zero-Shot Settings**: Orca 2 was trained on data that mostly simulate zero-shot settings.
While the model demonstrate very strong performance in zero-shot settings, it does not show
the same gains of using few-shot learning compared to other, specially larger, models.

**Synthetic data**: As Orca 2 is trained on synthetic data, it could inherit both the advantages
and shortcomings of the models and methods used for data generation. We posit that Orca
2 benefits from the safety measures incorporated during training and safety guardrails (e.g.,
content filter) within the Azure OpenAI API. However, detailed studies are required for
better quantification of such risks.

This model is solely designed for research settings, and its testing has only been carried
out in such environments. It should not be used in downstream applications, as additional
analysis is needed to assess potential harm or bias in the proposed application.

## How to Get Started with the Model

Use the code below to get started with the model.

[More Information Needed]