# DiffAnt: Diffusion Models for Action Anticipation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.15991 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.15991/

## Key facts

- Cited by 9 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Video generation, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models.
- Builds on 53 of its 63 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 27 Nov 2023.

## Placed in

- Diffusion models / [Video generation](https://mlsanity.com/diffusion/video-generation/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 53)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10752/) (2021)
- [Denoising Diffusion Implicit Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.02502/) (2020)
- [Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.13456/) (2020)
- [Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.05233/) (2021)
- [End-to-End Object Detection with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.12872/) (2020)
- [Deep Unsupervised Learning using Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1503.03585/) (2015)
- [RoFormer: Enhanced Transformer with Rotary Position Embedding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.09864/) (2021)
- [Generative Modeling by Estimating Gradients of the Data Distribution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.05600/) (2019)
- [Auto-Encoding Variational Bayes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1312.6114/) (2013)
- [Improved Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.09672/) (2021)
- [Deformable DETR: Deformable Transformers for End-to-End Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.04159/) (2020)
- [Quo Vadis, Action Recognition? A New Model and the Kinetics Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.07750/) (2017)
- [Ego4D: Around the World in 3,000 Hours of Egocentric Video](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.07058/) (2021)
- [Improved Techniques for Training Score-Based Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.09011/) (2020)
- [Diffusion-LM Improves Controllable Text Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.14217/) (2022)
- [Scaling Egocentric Vision: The EPIC-KITCHENS Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.02748/) (2018)
- [Vector Quantized Diffusion Model for Text-to-Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.14822/) (2021)
- [Label-Efficient Semantic Segmentation with Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.03126/) (2021)
- [DiffuSeq: Sequence to Sequence Text Generation with Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.08933/) (2022)
- [MS-TCN: Multi-Stage Temporal Convolutional Network for Action Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.01945/) (2019)
- [DiffusionDet: Diffusion Model for Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.09788/) (2022)
- [Understanding Diffusion Models: A Unified Perspective](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.11970/) (2022)
- [MCVD: Masked Conditional Video Diffusion for Prediction, Generation, and Interpolation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.09853/) (2022)
- [SegDiff: Image Segmentation with Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.00390/) (2021)
- [Diffusion Probabilistic Modeling for Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.09481/) (2022)
- [The EPIC-KITCHENS Dataset: Collection, Challenges and Baselines](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.00343/) (2020)
- [Anticipative Video Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.02036/) (2021)
- [ASFormer: Transformer for Action Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.08568/) (2021)

## Built on by (most cited first, 9 of 9)

- [MADiff: Motion-Aware Mamba Diffusion Models for Hand Trajectory Prediction on Egocentric Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.02638/) (2024)
- [Human Action Anticipation: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.14045/) (2024)
- [Action Anticipation from SoccerNet Football Video Broadcasts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.12021/) (2025)
- [Uncertainty-boosted Robust Video Activity Anticipation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.18648/) (2024)
- [QueryMamba: A Mamba-Based Encoder-Decoder Architecture with a Statistical Verb-Noun Interaction Module for Video Action Forecasting @ Ego4D Long-Term Action Anticipation Challenge 2024](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.04184/) (2024)
- [MANTA: Diffusion Mamba for Efficient and Effective Stochastic Long-Term Dense Anticipation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.08837/) (2025)
- [MixANT: Observation-dependent Memory Propagation for Stochastic Dense Action Anticipation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.11394/) (2025)
- [Temporal Context Consistency Above All: Enhancing Long-Term Anticipation by Learning and Enforcing Temporal Constraints](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.19424/) (2024)
- [See It Before You Grab It: Deep Learning-based Action Anticipation in Basketball](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.15386/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Anticipating future actions is inherently uncertain. Given an observed video segment containing ongoing actions, multiple subsequent actions can plausibly follow. This uncertainty becomes even larger when predicting far into the future. However, the majority of existing action anticipation models adhere to a deterministic approach, neglecting to account for future uncertainties. In this work, we rethink action anticipation from a generative view, employing diffusion models to capture different possible future actions. In this framework, future actions are iteratively generated from standard Gaussian noise in the latent space, conditioned on the observed video, and subsequently transitioned into the action space. Extensive experiments on four benchmark datasets, i.e., Breakfast, 50Salads, EpicKitchens, and EGTEA Gaze+, are performed and the proposed method achieves superior or comparable results to state-of-the-art methods, showing the effectiveness of a generative approach for action anticipation. Our code and trained models will be published on GitHub.