arXiv:2604.08111cs.LGcs.CV2026-04

研究发现模型删掉一个群体数据会把偏见转移到其他群体,尤其性别方向更明显。

Bias Redistribution in Visual Machine Unlearning: Does Forgetting One Group Harm Another?

论文配图:Bias Redistribution in Visual Machine Unlearning: Does Forgetting One Group Harm Another?
图 1 · 摘自论文原文
  • 用三种方法在CLIP模型上测试删数据对不同性别年龄组的影响
  • 删掉年轻女性组后,老年女性组性能反而提升,偏见沿性别转移
  • 现有方法无法彻底消除偏见,可能让保留群体更不公平

机器遗忘使模型能选择性删除训练数据,响应GDPR和CCPA等隐私法规。但其公平性影响尚未充分探讨:当模型遗忘某一人口群体时,是中和该概念,还是将其转移至相关群体,从而加剧偏见?我们在CelebA数据集上,基于CLIP模型(ViT/B-32、ViT-L/14、ViT-B/16)的零样本分类设置下,针对年龄与性别交集群体进行研究。评估了三种遗忘方法:提示擦除、提示重加权和拒绝向量,通过分组准确率变化、群体平等差距及再分配得分分析。结果表明,遗忘并未消除偏见,而是主要沿性别边界重新分布。特别地,移除主导的年轻女性群体后,老年女性群体在所有模型规模下性能均提升,揭示了CLIP嵌入空间中以性别为主导的结构。尽管拒绝向量方法减少了再分配,但未能实现完全遗忘,并显著降低保留性能。这些发现凸显当前遗忘方法的根本局限:若不考虑嵌入几何结构,可能在保留群体中放大偏见。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Machine unlearning enables models to selectively forget training data, driven by privacy regulations such as GDPR and CCPA. However, its fairness implications remain underexplored: when a model forgets a demographic group, does it neutralize that concept or redistribute it to correlated groups, potentially amplifying bias? We investigate this bias redistribution phenomenon on CelebA using CLIP models (ViT/B-32, ViT-L/14, ViT-B/16) under a zero-shot classification setting across intersectional groups defined by age and gender. We evaluate three unlearning methods, Prompt Erasure, Prompt Reweighting, and Refusal Vector using per-group accuracy shifts, demographic parity gaps, and a redistribution score. Our results show that unlearning does not eliminate bias but redistributes it primarily along gender rather than age boundaries. In particular, removing the dominant Young Female group consistently transfers performance to Old Female across all model scales, revealing a gender-dominant structure in CLIP's embedding space. While the Refusal Vector method reduces redistribution, it fails to achieve complete forgetting and significantly degrades retained performance. These findings highlight a fundamental limitation of current unlearning methods: without accounting for embedding geometry, they risk amplifying bias in retained groups.

机器遗忘偏见转移公平性CLIP

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