Training & post-training
Catastrophic forgetting
Loss of previously learned capability when a model is trained on new data.
Definition
Catastrophic forgetting occurs when adaptation shifts model parameters in ways that degrade performance on earlier tasks or knowledge.
Why it matters
A finance-tuned model may improve target tasks while silently weakening safety, general reasoning or other shared capabilities.
Related concepts
- Fine-tuning
Additional training that adapts a model to a task, domain or behaviour.
- Regression testing
Checking that a change has not broken previously acceptable behaviour.
- Continuous evaluation
Rerunning tests as a system and its environment change.