BID-LoRA: A Parameter-Efficient Framework for Continual Learning and Unlearning

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Rachapudi, Jagadeesh, Vatsi, Ritali, Hambarde, Praful, Shukla, Amit
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866913030168641536
author Rachapudi, Jagadeesh
Vatsi, Ritali
Hambarde, Praful
Shukla, Amit
author_facet Rachapudi, Jagadeesh
Vatsi, Ritali
Hambarde, Praful
Shukla, Amit
contents Recent advances in deep learning underscore the need for systems that can not only acquire new knowledge through Continual Learning (CL) but also remove outdated, sensitive, or private information through Machine Unlearning (MU). However, while CL methods are well-developed, MU techniques remain in early stages, creating a critical gap for unified frameworks that depend on both capabilities. We find that naively combining existing CL and MU approaches results in knowledge leakage a gradual degradation of foundational knowledge across repeated adaptation cycles. To address this, we formalize Continual Learning Unlearning (CLU) as a unified paradigm with three key goals: (i) precise deletion of unwanted knowledge, (ii) efficient integration of new knowledge while preserving prior information, and (iii) minimizing knowledge leakage across cycles. We propose Bi-Directional Low-Rank Adaptation (BID-LoRA), a novel framework featuring three dedicated adapter pathways-retain, new, and unlearn applied to attention layers, combined with escape unlearning that pushes forget-class embeddings to positions maximally distant from retained knowledge, updating only 5% of parameters. Experiments on CIFAR-100 show that BID-LoRA outperforms CLU baselines across multiple adaptation cycles. We further evaluate on CASIA-Face100, a curated face recognition subset, demonstrating practical applicability to real-world identity management systems where new users must be enrolled and withdrawn users removed.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2604_12686
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle BID-LoRA: A Parameter-Efficient Framework for Continual Learning and Unlearning
Rachapudi, Jagadeesh
Vatsi, Ritali
Hambarde, Praful
Shukla, Amit
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Recent advances in deep learning underscore the need for systems that can not only acquire new knowledge through Continual Learning (CL) but also remove outdated, sensitive, or private information through Machine Unlearning (MU). However, while CL methods are well-developed, MU techniques remain in early stages, creating a critical gap for unified frameworks that depend on both capabilities. We find that naively combining existing CL and MU approaches results in knowledge leakage a gradual degradation of foundational knowledge across repeated adaptation cycles. To address this, we formalize Continual Learning Unlearning (CLU) as a unified paradigm with three key goals: (i) precise deletion of unwanted knowledge, (ii) efficient integration of new knowledge while preserving prior information, and (iii) minimizing knowledge leakage across cycles. We propose Bi-Directional Low-Rank Adaptation (BID-LoRA), a novel framework featuring three dedicated adapter pathways-retain, new, and unlearn applied to attention layers, combined with escape unlearning that pushes forget-class embeddings to positions maximally distant from retained knowledge, updating only 5% of parameters. Experiments on CIFAR-100 show that BID-LoRA outperforms CLU baselines across multiple adaptation cycles. We further evaluate on CASIA-Face100, a curated face recognition subset, demonstrating practical applicability to real-world identity management systems where new users must be enrolled and withdrawn users removed.
title BID-LoRA: A Parameter-Efficient Framework for Continual Learning and Unlearning
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.12686