# Continual Hyperbolic Learning of Instances and Classes

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.10710 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.10710/

## Key facts

- Cited by 5 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 81 of its 110 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 12 Jun 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 81)

- [Distilling the Knowledge in a Neural Network](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1503.02531/) (2015)
- [Overcoming catastrophic forgetting in neural networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1612.00796/) (2016)
- [Learning without Forgetting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1606.09282/) (2016)
- [iCaRL: Incremental Classifier and Representation Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.07725/) (2016)
- [Gradient Episodic Memory for Continual Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.08840/) (2017)
- [Continual Learning with Deep Generative Replay](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.08690/) (2017)
- [Experience Replay for Continual Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.11682/) (2018)
- [Efficient Lifelong Learning with A-GEM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.00420/) (2018)
- [Dark Experience for General Continual Learning: a Strong, Simple Baseline](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.07211/) (2020)
- [A Comprehensive Survey of Continual Learning: Theory, Method and Application](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.00487/) (2023)
- [Riemannian Walk for Incremental Learning: Understanding Forgetting and Intransigence](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.10112/) (2018)
- [Large Scale Incremental Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.13260/) (2019)
- [Poincar'e Embeddings for Learning Hierarchical Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.08039/) (2017)
- [Gradient based sample selection for online continual learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.08671/) (2019)
- [Hyperbolic Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.09112/) (2018)
- [Hyperbolic Graph Convolutional Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.12933/) (2019)
- [DyTox: Transformers for Continual Learning with DYnamic TOken eXpansion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2111.11326/) (2021)
- [CORe50: a New Dataset and Benchmark for Continuous Object Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.03550/) (2017)
- [Maintaining Discrimination and Fairness in Class Incremental Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.07053/) (2019)
- [Rainbow Memory: Continual Learning with a Memory of Diverse Samples](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.17230/) (2021)
- [Learning Continuous Hierarchies in the Lorentz Model of Hyperbolic Geometry](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.03417/) (2018)
- [S-Prompts Learning with Pre-trained Transformers: An Occam's Razor for Domain Incremental Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.12819/) (2022)
- [Hyperbolic Graph Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.12892/) (2019)
- [FOSTER: Feature Boosting and Compression for Class-Incremental Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.04662/) (2022)
- [Hyperbolic Image Embeddings](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.02239/) (2019)
- [Continual Learning of Context-dependent Processing in Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.01256/) (2018)
- [Hyperbolic Entailment Cones for Learning Hierarchical Embeddings](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.01882/) (2018)
- [Poincar'e GloVe: Hyperbolic Word Embeddings](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1810.06546/) (2018)
- [A Model or 603 Exemplars: Towards Memory-Efficient Class-Incremental Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.13218/) (2022)
- [Riemannian Continuous Normalizing Flows](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.10605/) (2020)

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

- [Hyperbolic Multimodal Continual Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.09572/) (2026)
- [Hyperbolic Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.25206/) (2025)
- [After the Euclidean Highway: Hyperbolic Expert AI as the Next Innovation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.17513/) (2026)
- [Geometry-Aware Hyperbolic Residual-Quantized Variational Autoencoders](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.26342/) (2026)
- [Hyperbolic Multimodal Continual Learning: A Closest-Admissible Solution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.29329/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Continual learning has traditionally focused on classifying either instances or classes, but real-world applications, such as robotics and self-driving cars, require models to handle both simultaneously. To mirror real-life scenarios, we introduce the task of continual learning of instances and classes, at the same time. This task challenges models to adapt to multiple levels of granularity over time, which requires balancing fine-grained instance recognition with coarse-grained class generalization. In this paper, we identify that classes and instances naturally form a hierarchical structure. To model these hierarchical relationships, we propose HyperCLIC, a continual learning algorithm that leverages hyperbolic space, which is uniquely suited for hierarchical data due to its ability to represent tree-like structures with low distortion and compact embeddings. Our framework incorporates hyperbolic classification and distillation objectives, enabling the continual embedding of hierarchical relations. To evaluate performance across multiple granularities, we introduce continual hierarchical metrics. We validate our approach on EgoObjects, the only dataset that captures the complexity of hierarchical object recognition in dynamic real-world environments. Empirical results show that HyperCLIC operates effectively at multiple granularities with improved hierarchical generalization.