提出动态合并方法,解决多模态大模型持续删除信息时效果衰减问题。
A Model Merging Approach for Continual MLLM Unlearning

- 通过动态融合多个单次删除适配器,生成统一适配器应对持续请求。
- 在ICU-Bench和MLLMU-Bench上实现更优删减效果,同时保留知识与通用能力。
- 适用于需频繁删除敏感信息的多模态模型场景,如医疗或金融领域。
多模态大语言模型(MLLM)的删减方法旨在移除已训练模型中的私密、敏感或专有信息。然而,现有方法多针对单次请求设计,在持续场景下反复应用会导致累积性能下降、删减反弹和知识漂移。本文提出持续删减的融合方法(MCU),在每次新删减请求时,动态将多个单次删减适配器合并为统一适配器。通过留一法融合分析发现,这些适配器存在强跨任务依赖性:既能促进跨任务删减迁移,也可能引入严重干扰,降低删减效果并损害保留知识。为此,MCU将适配器投影至共享表示空间,保留主导方向,抑制过度集中坐标,并重构跨任务依赖关系,以缓解干扰并增强迁移性。在ICU-Bench和MLLMU-Bench上的实验表明,MCU在保持保留知识与通用多模态能力的同时,实现了更优的删减效果。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Multimodal large language model (MLLM) unlearning methods have been proposed to remove private, sensitive, or proprietary information from well-trained models. However, most existing MLLM unlearning methods are designed for one-shot requests and fail to adequately address continual scenarios, as repeatedly applying one-shot operations leads to cumulative utility degradation, unlearning rebound, and retention drift. We introduce Merging for Continual Unlearning (MCU), an approach that dynamically merges multiple one-shot unlearning adapters into a unified adapter upon receiving each new unlearning request.Through a leave-one-out merging analysis, we reveal that these unlearning adapters exhibit strong cross-task dependencies. Such dependencies have two contrasting effects: they can facilitate cross-task unlearning transferability, but they can also introduce severe interference that degrades unlearning effectiveness and compromises retained knowledge. To address this challenge, MCU projects the adapters into a shared representation space, preserves their dominant directions, suppresses over-concentrated coordinates, and reconfigures cross-task dependencies to mitigate interference while enhancing transferability. Experiments on ICU-Bench and MLLMU-Bench demonstrate that MCU achieves superior unlearning effectiveness while preserving both retained knowledge and general multimodal utility.
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