# TAG: Task-based Accumulated Gradients for Lifelong learning

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.05155 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.05155/

## Key facts

- Cited by 5 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 47 of its 67 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 11 May 2021.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 47)

- [Adam: A Method for Stochastic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.6980/) (2014)
- [Model-Agnostic Meta-Learning for Fast Adaptation of Deep Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.03400/) (2017)
- [Overcoming catastrophic forgetting in neural networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1612.00796/) (2016)
- [Fashion-MNIST: a Novel Image Dataset for Benchmarking Machine Learning Algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.07747/) (2017)
- [Learning without Forgetting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.09282/) (2016)
- [iCaRL: Incremental Classifier and Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.07725/) (2016)
- [Matching Networks for One Shot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.04080/) (2016)
- [Gradient Episodic Memory for Continual Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.08840/) (2017)
- [Progressive Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.04671/) (2016)
- [Continual Lifelong Learning with Neural Networks: A Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.07569/) (2018)
- [Efficient Lifelong Learning with A-GEM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.00420/) (2018)
- [An overview of gradient descent optimization algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1609.04747/) (2016)
- [Riemannian Walk for Incremental Learning: Understanding Forgetting and Intransigence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.10112/) (2018)
- [An Empirical Investigation of Catastrophic Forgetting in Gradient-Based Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1312.6211/) (2013)
- [Lifelong Learning with Dynamically Expandable Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.01547/) (2017)
- [Three scenarios for continual learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.07734/) (2019)
- [Weight Uncertainty in Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1505.05424/) (2015)
- [Learning to Learn without Forgetting by Maximizing Transfer and Minimizing Interference](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.11910/) (2018)
- [Class-incremental learning: survey and performance evaluation on image classification](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.15277/) (2020)
- [Online Continual Learning with Maximally Interfered Retrieval](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.04742/) (2019)
- [Expert Gate: Lifelong Learning with a Network of Experts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.06194/) (2016)
- [Orthogonal Gradient Descent for Continual Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.07104/) (2019)
- [Gradient Projection Memory for Continual Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.09762/) (2021)
- [Variational Continual Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1710.10628/) (2017)
- [Learn to Grow: A Continual Structure Learning Framework for Overcoming Catastrophic Forgetting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.00310/) (2019)
- [Rainbow Memory: Continual Learning with a Memory of Diverse Samples](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.17230/) (2021)
- [Online Continual Learning in Image Classification: An Empirical Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.10423/) (2021)
- [Re-evaluating Continual Learning Scenarios: A Categorization and Case for Strong Baselines](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.12488/) (2018)
- [Reinforced Continual Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.12369/) (2018)
- [Understanding the Role of Training Regimes in Continual Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.06958/) (2020)

## Built on by (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [Continual Learning and Catastrophic Forgetting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.05175/) (2024)
- [Model Zoo: A Growing "Brain" That Learns Continually](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.03027/) (2021)
- [Parameter-Level Soft-Masking for Continual Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.14775/) (2023)
- [Finding Structure in Continual Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.04555/) (2026)
- [Task Switching Without Forgetting via Proximal Decoupling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.18857/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

When an agent encounters a continual stream of new tasks in the lifelong learning setting, it leverages the knowledge it gained from the earlier tasks to help learn the new tasks better. In such a scenario, identifying an efficient knowledge representation becomes a challenging problem. Most research works propose to either store a subset of examples from the past tasks in a replay buffer, dedicate a separate set of parameters to each task or penalize excessive updates over parameters by introducing a regularization term. While existing methods employ the general task-agnostic stochastic gradient descent update rule, we propose a task-aware optimizer that adapts the learning rate based on the relatedness among tasks. We utilize the directions taken by the parameters during the updates by accumulating the gradients specific to each task. These task-based accumulated gradients act as a knowledge base that is maintained and updated throughout the stream. We empirically show that our proposed adaptive learning rate not only accounts for catastrophic forgetting but also allows positive backward transfer. We also show that our method performs better than several state-of-the-art methods in lifelong learning on complex datasets with a large number of tasks.