RESTOR: Knowledge Recovery in Machine Unlearning

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Rezaei, Keivan, Chandu, Khyathi, Feizi, Soheil, Choi, Yejin, Brahman, Faeze, Ravichander, Abhilasha
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Rezaei, Keivan
Chandu, Khyathi
Feizi, Soheil
Choi, Yejin
Brahman, Faeze
Ravichander, Abhilasha
author_facet Rezaei, Keivan
Chandu, Khyathi
Feizi, Soheil
Choi, Yejin
Brahman, Faeze
Ravichander, Abhilasha
contents Large language models trained on web-scale corpora can memorize undesirable data containing misinformation, copyrighted material, or private or sensitive information. Recently, several machine unlearning algorithms have been proposed to eliminate the effect of such datapoints from trained models -- that is, to approximate a model that had never been trained on these datapoints in the first place. However, evaluating the effectiveness of unlearning algorithms remains an open challenge. Previous work has relied on heuristics -- such as verifying that the model can no longer reproduce the specific information targeted for removal while maintaining accuracy on unrelated test data. These approaches inadequately capture the complete effect of reversing the influence of datapoints on a trained model. In this work, we propose the RESTOR framework for machine unlearning evaluation, which assesses the ability of unlearning algorithms for targeted data erasure, by evaluating the ability of models to forget the knowledge introduced in these datapoints, while simultaneously recovering the model's knowledge state had it never encountered these datapoints. RESTOR helps uncover several novel insights about popular unlearning algorithms, and the mechanisms through which they operate -- for instance, identifying that some algorithms merely emphasize forgetting but not recovering knowledge, and that localizing unlearning targets can enhance unlearning performance.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2411_00204
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle RESTOR: Knowledge Recovery in Machine Unlearning
Rezaei, Keivan
Chandu, Khyathi
Feizi, Soheil
Choi, Yejin
Brahman, Faeze
Ravichander, Abhilasha
Computation and Language
Large language models trained on web-scale corpora can memorize undesirable data containing misinformation, copyrighted material, or private or sensitive information. Recently, several machine unlearning algorithms have been proposed to eliminate the effect of such datapoints from trained models -- that is, to approximate a model that had never been trained on these datapoints in the first place. However, evaluating the effectiveness of unlearning algorithms remains an open challenge. Previous work has relied on heuristics -- such as verifying that the model can no longer reproduce the specific information targeted for removal while maintaining accuracy on unrelated test data. These approaches inadequately capture the complete effect of reversing the influence of datapoints on a trained model. In this work, we propose the RESTOR framework for machine unlearning evaluation, which assesses the ability of unlearning algorithms for targeted data erasure, by evaluating the ability of models to forget the knowledge introduced in these datapoints, while simultaneously recovering the model's knowledge state had it never encountered these datapoints. RESTOR helps uncover several novel insights about popular unlearning algorithms, and the mechanisms through which they operate -- for instance, identifying that some algorithms merely emphasize forgetting but not recovering knowledge, and that localizing unlearning targets can enhance unlearning performance.
title RESTOR: Knowledge Recovery in Machine Unlearning
topic Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.00204