# Self-control: A Better Conditional Mechanism for Masked Autoregressive Model

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.13635 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.13635/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 29 of its 30 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 18 Dec 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 29 of 29)

- [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)
- [LoRA: Low-Rank Adaptation of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.09685/) (2021)
- [Masked Autoencoders Are Scalable Vision Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.06377/) (2021)
- [Hierarchical Text-Conditional Image Generation with CLIP Latents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.06125/) (2022)
- [Photorealistic Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with Deep Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.11487/) (2022)
- [Scalable Diffusion Models with Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.09748/) (2022)
- [Adding Conditional Control to Text-to-Image Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.05543/) (2023)
- [Neural Discrete Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.00937/) (2017)
- [Zero-Shot Text-to-Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.12092/) (2021)
- [GLIDE: Towards Photorealistic Image Generation and Editing with Text-Guided Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10741/) (2021)
- [DreamBooth: Fine Tuning Text-to-Image Diffusion Models for Subject-Driven Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.12242/) (2022)
- [Taming Transformers for High-Resolution Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.09841/) (2020)
- [MaskGIT: Masked Generative Image Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.04200/) (2022)
- [Visual Autoregressive Modeling: Scalable Image Generation via Next-Scale Prediction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.02905/) (2024)
- [Conditional Image Generation with PixelCNN Decoders](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.05328/) (2016)
- [Pixel Recurrent Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1601.06759/) (2016)
- [Autoregressive Model Beats Diffusion: Llama for Scalable Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.06525/) (2024)
- [CogView: Mastering Text-to-Image Generation via Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.13290/) (2021)
- [AttnGAN: Fine-Grained Text to Image Generation with Attentional Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.10485/) (2017)
- [Autoregressive Image Generation without Vector Quantization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.11838/) (2024)
- [StackGAN: Text to Photo-realistic Image Synthesis with Stacked Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1612.03242/) (2016)
- [All are Worth Words: A ViT Backbone for Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.12152/) (2022)
- [MAGVIT: Masked Generative Video Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.05199/) (2022)
- [MAGE: MAsked Generative Encoder to Unify Representation Learning and Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.09117/) (2022)
- [Fluid: Scaling Autoregressive Text-to-image Generative Models with Continuous Tokens](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.13863/) (2024)
- [GIVT: Generative Infinite-Vocabulary Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.02116/) (2023)
- [Scalable Autoregressive Image Generation with Mamba](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.12245/) (2024)
- [SD-GAN: Semantic Decomposition for Face Image Synthesis with Discrete Attribute](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.05300/) (2022)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Autoregressive conditional image generation algorithms are capable of generating photorealistic images that are consistent with given textual or image conditions, and have great potential for a wide range of applications. Nevertheless, the majority of popular autoregressive image generation methods rely heavily on vector quantization, and the inherent discrete characteristic of codebook presents a considerable challenge to achieving high-quality image generation. To address this limitation, this paper introduces a novel conditional introduction network for continuous masked autoregressive models. The proposed self-control network serves to mitigate the negative impact of vector quantization on the quality of the generated images, while simultaneously enhancing the conditional control during the generation process. In particular, the self-control network is constructed upon a continuous mask autoregressive generative model, which incorporates multimodal conditional information, including text and images, into a unified autoregressive sequence in a serial manner. Through a self-attention mechanism, the network is capable of generating images that are controllable based on specific conditions. The self-control network discards the conventional cross-attention-based conditional fusion mechanism and effectively unifies the conditional and generative information within the same space, thereby facilitating more seamless learning and fusion of multimodal features.