arXiv:2509.23593cs.LG2025-09被引 4

利用扩散模型生成高质量数据,结合低秩Fisher信息提升持续学习性能。

Avoid Catastrophic Forgetting with Rank-1 Fisher from Diffusion Models

  • 发现扩散模型在低信噪比下梯度高度共线,使Fisher矩阵近似为秩1。
  • 提出轻量级秩1-EWC方法,在图像生成任务上显著降低遗忘率。
  • 适合需要长期训练且避免灾难性遗忘的生成模型研究者使用。

灾难性遗忘仍是神经网络持续学习的核心挑战。主流方法如回放和弹性权重固化(EWC)各有局限:回放需强大生成器且易产生分布漂移,而EWC隐含任务共享最优解假设,并通常采用对角线Fisher近似。本文研究扩散模型的梯度几何特性,发现其在低信噪比(SNR)下样本梯度高度共线,导致经验Fisher矩阵近乎秩1且与均值梯度对齐。基于此,我们提出一种轻量级秩1-EWC方法,成本与对角近似相当,却能捕捉主导曲率方向。结合回放策略,该方法在分类增量图像生成数据集(MNIST、FashionMNIST、CIFAR-10、ImageNet-1k)上持续提升平均FID并减少遗忘。尤其在MNIST和FashionMNIST上几乎消除遗忘,在ImageNet-1k上遗忘率降低超过50%。结果表明,扩散模型具备近似秩1的Fisher结构。更优的Fisher估计使EWC成为回放的有力补充:回放促进跨任务参数共享,而EWC有效约束回放引发的漂移。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Catastrophic forgetting remains a central obstacle for continual learning in neural models. Popular approaches -- replay and elastic weight consolidation (EWC) -- have limitations: replay requires a strong generator and is prone to distributional drift, while EWC implicitly assumes a shared optimum across tasks and typically uses a diagonal Fisher approximation. In this work, we study the gradient geometry of diffusion models, which can already produce high-quality replay data. We provide theoretical and empirical evidence that, in the low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) regime, per-sample gradients become strongly collinear, yielding an empirical Fisher that is effectively rank-1 and aligned with the mean gradient. Leveraging this structure, we propose a rank-1 variant of EWC that is as cheap as the diagonal approximation yet captures the dominant curvature direction. We pair this penalty with a replay-based approach to encourage parameter sharing across tasks while mitigating drift. On class-incremental image generation datasets (MNIST, FashionMNIST, CIFAR-10, ImageNet-1k), our method consistently improves average FID and reduces forgetting relative to replay-only and diagonal-EWC baselines. In particular, forgetting is nearly eliminated on MNIST and FashionMNIST and is more than halved on ImageNet-1k. These results suggest that diffusion models admit an approximately rank-1 Fisher. With a better Fisher estimate, EWC becomes a strong complement to replay: replay encourages parameter sharing across tasks, while EWC effectively constrains replay-induced drift.

持续学习扩散模型遗忘抑制

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