# Efficient Expansion and Gradient Based Task Inference for Replay Free Incremental Learning

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2312.01188 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.01188/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 41 of its 66 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 2 Dec 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 41)

- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [Very Deep Convolutional Networks for Large-Scale Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1409.1556/) (2014)
- [Overcoming catastrophic forgetting in neural networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1612.00796/) (2016)
- [iCaRL: Incremental Classifier and Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.07725/) (2016)
- [Progressive Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.04671/) (2016)
- [LSUN: Construction of a Large-scale Image Dataset using Deep Learning with Humans in the Loop](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1506.03365/) (2015)
- [Continual Lifelong Learning with Neural Networks: A Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1802.07569/) (2018)
- [Continual Learning with Deep Generative Replay](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.08690/) (2017)
- [Memory Aware Synapses: Learning what (not) to forget](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.09601/) (2017)
- [Experience Replay for Continual Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.11682/) (2018)
- [PackNet: Adding Multiple Tasks to a Single Network by Iterative Pruning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.05769/) (2017)
- [Riemannian Walk for Incremental Learning: Understanding Forgetting and Intransigence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.10112/) (2018)
- [Lifelong Learning with Dynamically Expandable Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.01547/) (2017)
- [Overcoming catastrophic forgetting with hard attention to the task](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.01423/) (2018)
- [Deep Batch Active Learning by Diverse, Uncertain Gradient Lower Bounds](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.03671/) (2019)
- [End-to-End Incremental Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1807.09536/) (2018)
- [DER: Dynamically Expandable Representation for Class Incremental Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.16788/) (2021)
- [Continual learning with hypernetworks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.00695/) (2019)
- [Overcoming Catastrophic Forgetting by Incremental Moment Matching](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1703.08475/) (2017)
- [Semantic Drift Compensation for Class-Incremental Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.00440/) (2020)
- [Supermasks in Superposition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.14769/) (2020)
- [Compacting, Picking and Growing for Unforgetting Continual Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.06562/) (2019)
- [Reinforced Continual Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.12369/) (2018)
- [Class-incremental Learning via Deep Model Consolidation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.07864/) (2019)
- [A Neural Dirichlet Process Mixture Model for Task-Free Continual Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2001.00689/) (2020)
- [Scalable and Order-robust Continual Learning with Additive Parameter Decomposition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1902.09432/) (2019)
- [Penalizing Gradient Norm for Efficiently Improving Generalization in Deep Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.03599/) (2022)
- [FeTrIL: Feature Translation for Exemplar-Free Class-Incremental Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.13131/) (2022)
- [Self-Sustaining Representation Expansion for Non-Exemplar Class-Incremental Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.06359/) (2022)
- [Generative Feature Replay For Class-Incremental Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.09199/) (2020)

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

- [Gradient-based inference of abstract task representations for generalization in neural networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.17356/) (2024)
- [Elastic Weight Consolidation Done Right for Continual Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.18596/) (2026)
- [Continual Uncertainty Learning for Robust Control of Nonlinear Systems with Multiple Heterogeneous Uncertainties](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.17174/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

This paper proposes a simple but highly efficient expansion-based model for continual learning. The recent feature transformation, masking and factorization-based methods are efficient, but they grow the model only over the global or shared parameter. Therefore, these approaches do not fully utilize the previously learned information because the same task-specific parameter forgets the earlier knowledge. Thus, these approaches show limited transfer learning ability. Moreover, most of these models have constant parameter growth for all tasks, irrespective of the task complexity. Our work proposes a simple filter and channel expansion based method that grows the model over the previous task parameters and not just over the global parameter. Therefore, it fully utilizes all the previously learned information without forgetting, which results in better knowledge transfer. The growth rate in our proposed model is a function of task complexity; therefore for a simple task, the model has a smaller parameter growth while for complex tasks, the model requires more parameters to adapt to the current task. Recent expansion based models show promising results for task incremental learning (TIL). However, for class incremental learning (CIL), prediction of task id is a crucial challenge; hence, their results degrade rapidly as the number of tasks increase. In this work, we propose a robust task prediction method that leverages entropy weighted data augmentations and the models gradient using pseudo labels. We evaluate our model on various datasets and architectures in the TIL, CIL and generative continual learning settings. The proposed approach shows state-of-the-art results in all these settings. Our extensive ablation studies show the efficacy of the proposed components.