arXiv:2604.16536cs.SEcs.AI2026-04

提出因果模糊测试法,精准检测模型是否残留敏感数据依赖。

Towards Reliable Testing of Machine Unlearning

  • 基于因果路径分析,生成预算内干预检测数据泄露
  • 实验证明传统方法会漏检代理路径和抵消效应导致的残留影响
  • 适合需合规删除数据的AI系统,尤其接口部署模型

机器学习组件已深度嵌入推荐、代码助手、临床决策等系统中。随着监管要求模型删除敏感数据,机器遗忘成为替代全量重训的可行方案。然而,遗忘引入了软件质量保障挑战:在真实部署约束与不完美评估条件下,如何验证模型不再依赖目标信息?本文将遗忘测试视为核心软件工程问题。提出需满足四点:(i)覆盖代理与中介影响路径的全面测试;(ii)可诊断定位泄漏位置的调试能力;(iii)在查询预算下成本可控的回归式执行;(iv)适用于接口部署模型的黑盒适用性。我们提出因果路径中心视角与因果模糊测试,通过预算内干预估计残余直接与间接影响,生成可操作的“泄漏报告”。概念验证结果表明,标准归因检查可能因代理路径、抵消效应及子群掩盖而遗漏残余影响,凸显因果测试在遗忘测试中的潜力。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Machine learning components are now central to AI-infused software systems, from recommendations and code assistants to clinical decision support. As regulations and governance frameworks increasingly require deleting sensitive data from deployed models, machine unlearning is emerging as a practical alternative to full retraining. However, unlearning introduces a software quality-assurance challenge: under realistic deployment constraints and imperfect oracles, how can we test that a model no longer relies on targeted information? This paper frames unlearning testing as a first-class software engineering problem. We argue that practical unlearning tests must provide (i) thorough coverage over proxy and mediated influence pathways, (ii) debuggable diagnostics that localize where leakage persists, (iii) cost-effective regression-style execution under query budgets, and (iv) black-box applicability for API-deployed models. We outline a causal, pathway-centric perspective, causal fuzzing, that generates budgeted interventions to estimate residual direct and indirect effects and produce actionable "leakage reports". Proof-of-concept results illustrate that standard attribution checks can miss residual influence due to proxy pathways, cancellation effects, and subgroup masking, motivating causal testing as a promising direction for unlearning testing.

机器遗忘因果推理模型测试数据合规

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