# From Charts to Atlas: Merging Latent Spaces into One

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.06547 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.06547/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 10 of its 15 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 11 Nov 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 10 of 10)

- [Communication-Efficient Learning of Deep Networks from Decentralized Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.05629/) (2016)
- [EfficientNet: Rethinking Model Scaling for Convolutional Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.11946/) (2019)
- [Similarity of Neural Network Representations Revisited](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.00414/) (2019)
- [Linear Mode Connectivity and the Lottery Ticket Hypothesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.05671/) (2019)
- [Loss Surfaces, Mode Connectivity, and Fast Ensembling of DNNs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.10026/) (2018)
- [Git Re-Basin: Merging Models modulo Permutation Symmetries](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.04836/) (2022)
- [Similarity of Neural Network Models: A Survey of Functional and Representational Measures](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.06329/) (2023)
- [Generalized Shape Metrics on Neural Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.14739/) (2021)
- [Loss Surface Simplexes for Mode Connecting Volumes and Fast Ensembling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.13042/) (2021)
- [Similarity of Neural Networks with Gradients](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.11498/) (2020)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [Escaping Plato's Cave: Towards the Alignment of 3D and Text Latent Spaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.05283/) (2025)
- [TOAST: Transformer Optimization using Adaptive and Simple Transformations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.04941/) (2024)
- [Relative Geometry of Neural Forecasters: Linking Accuracy and Alignment in Learned Latent Geometry](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.15676/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Models trained on semantically related datasets and tasks exhibit comparable inter-sample relations within their latent spaces. We investigate in this study the aggregation of such latent spaces to create a unified space encompassing the combined information. To this end, we introduce Relative Latent Space Aggregation, a two-step approach that first renders the spaces comparable using relative representations, and then aggregates them via a simple mean. We carefully divide a classification problem into a series of learning tasks under three different settings: sharing samples, classes, or neither. We then train a model on each task and aggregate the resulting latent spaces. We compare the aggregated space with that derived from an end-to-end model trained over all tasks and show that the two spaces are similar. We then observe that the aggregated space is better suited for classification, and empirically demonstrate that it is due to the unique imprints left by task-specific embedders within the representations. We finally test our framework in scenarios where no shared region exists and show that it can still be used to merge the spaces, albeit with diminished benefits over naive merging.
