SEMU: Singular Value Decomposition for Efficient Machine Unlearning

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Sendera, Marcin, Struski, Łukasz, Książek, Kamil, Musiol, Kryspin, Tabor, Jacek, Rymarczyk, Dawid
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Sendera, Marcin
Struski, Łukasz
Książek, Kamil
Musiol, Kryspin
Tabor, Jacek
Rymarczyk, Dawid
author_facet Sendera, Marcin
Struski, Łukasz
Książek, Kamil
Musiol, Kryspin
Tabor, Jacek
Rymarczyk, Dawid
contents While the capabilities of generative foundational models have advanced rapidly in recent years, methods to prevent harmful and unsafe behaviors remain underdeveloped. Among the pressing challenges in AI safety, machine unlearning (MU) has become increasingly critical to meet upcoming safety regulations. Most existing MU approaches focus on altering the most significant parameters of the model. However, these methods often require fine-tuning substantial portions of the model, resulting in high computational costs and training instabilities, which are typically mitigated by access to the original training dataset. In this work, we address these limitations by leveraging Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) to create a compact, low-dimensional projection that enables the selective forgetting of specific data points. We propose Singular Value Decomposition for Efficient Machine Unlearning (SEMU), a novel approach designed to optimize MU in two key aspects. First, SEMU minimizes the number of model parameters that need to be modified, effectively removing unwanted knowledge while making only minimal changes to the model's weights. Second, SEMU eliminates the dependency on the original training dataset, preserving the model's previously acquired knowledge without additional data requirements. Extensive experiments demonstrate that SEMU achieves competitive performance while significantly improving efficiency in terms of both data usage and the number of modified parameters.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_07587
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle SEMU: Singular Value Decomposition for Efficient Machine Unlearning
Sendera, Marcin
Struski, Łukasz
Książek, Kamil
Musiol, Kryspin
Tabor, Jacek
Rymarczyk, Dawid
Machine Learning
While the capabilities of generative foundational models have advanced rapidly in recent years, methods to prevent harmful and unsafe behaviors remain underdeveloped. Among the pressing challenges in AI safety, machine unlearning (MU) has become increasingly critical to meet upcoming safety regulations. Most existing MU approaches focus on altering the most significant parameters of the model. However, these methods often require fine-tuning substantial portions of the model, resulting in high computational costs and training instabilities, which are typically mitigated by access to the original training dataset. In this work, we address these limitations by leveraging Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) to create a compact, low-dimensional projection that enables the selective forgetting of specific data points. We propose Singular Value Decomposition for Efficient Machine Unlearning (SEMU), a novel approach designed to optimize MU in two key aspects. First, SEMU minimizes the number of model parameters that need to be modified, effectively removing unwanted knowledge while making only minimal changes to the model's weights. Second, SEMU eliminates the dependency on the original training dataset, preserving the model's previously acquired knowledge without additional data requirements. Extensive experiments demonstrate that SEMU achieves competitive performance while significantly improving efficiency in terms of both data usage and the number of modified parameters.
title SEMU: Singular Value Decomposition for Efficient Machine Unlearning
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.07587