# In-situ Autoguidance: Eliciting Self-Correction in Diffusion Models

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.17136 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.17136/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Diffusion foundations and sampling, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models.
- Builds on 6 of its 14 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 20 Oct 2025.

## Placed in

- Diffusion models / [Diffusion foundations and sampling](https://mlsanity.com/diffusion/diffusion-foundations-and-sampling/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 6 of 6)

- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.13456/) (2020)
- [Classifier-Free Diffusion Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.12598/) (2022)
- [Elucidating the Design Space of Diffusion-Based Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.00364/) (2022)
- [Contrastive Decoding: Open-ended Text Generation as Optimization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.15097/) (2022)
- [Riemannian Optimization on Relaxed Indicator Matrix Manifold](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.20505/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [Semantic Browsing: Controllable Diversity for Image Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.23679/) (2026)
- [DCGC: Draft-Conditioned Global Correction for Complex Reasoning with Masked Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.25428/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The generation of high-quality, diverse, and prompt-aligned images is a central goal in image-generating diffusion models. The popular classifier-free guidance (CFG) approach improves quality and alignment at the cost of reduced variation, creating an inherent entanglement of these effects. Recent work has successfully disentangled these properties by guiding a model with a separately trained, inferior counterpart; however, this solution introduces the considerable overhead of requiring an auxiliary model. We challenge this prerequisite by introducing In-situ Autoguidance, a method that elicits guidance from the model itself without any auxiliary components. Our approach dynamically generates an inferior prediction on the fly using a stochastic forward pass, reframing guidance as a form of inference-time self-correction. We demonstrate that this zero-cost approach is not only viable but also establishes a powerful new baseline for cost-efficient guidance, proving that the benefits of self-guidance can be achieved without external models.