mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

SCALEX: Scalable Concept and Latent Exploration for Diffusion Models

arXiv 2511.13750 ↗First posted 13 Nov 2025cs.LG cs.AIcited by 2

On the map: Diffusion models → Image generation, text-to-image and editing

Abstract (arXiv)

Image generation models frequently encode social biases, including stereotypes tied to gender, race, and profession. Existing methods for analyzing these biases in diffusion models either focus narrowly on predefined categories or depend on manual interpretation of latent directions. These constraints limit scalability and hinder the discovery of subtle or unanticipated patterns. We introduce SCALEX, a framework for scalable and automated exploration of diffusion model latent spaces. SCALEX extracts semantically meaningful directions from H-space using only natural language prompts, enabling zero-shot interpretation without retraining or labelling. This allows systematic comparison across arbitrary concepts and large-scale discovery of internal model associations. We show that SCALEX detects gender bias in profession prompts, ranks semantic alignment across identity descriptors, and reveals clustered conceptual structure without supervision. By linking prompts to latent directions directly, SCALEX makes bias analysis in diffusion models more scalable, interpretable, and extensible than prior approaches.

Key facts. Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Image generation, text-to-image and editing, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models. Builds on 28 of its 274 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 13 Nov 2025.

Builds on

28 of 274 references.

Closest ancestors · 6

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2025Dissecting and Mitigating Diffusion Bias via Mechanistic Interpretability26 Mar
  2. 2024Rethinking Training for De-biasing Text-to-Image Generation: Unlocking the Potential of Stable Diffusion22 Aug
  3. 2024Balancing Act: Distribution-Guided Debiasing in Diffusion Models28 Feb
  4. 2023Self-Discovering Interpretable Diffusion Latent Directions for Responsible Text-to-Image Generation28 Nov
  5. 2023Editing Implicit Assumptions in Text-to-Image Diffusion Models14 Mar
  6. 2023Concept Algebra for (Score-Based) Text-Controlled Generative Models7 Feb

Other references · 22

  1. 2021Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervisioncited by 33,744
  2. 2021High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Modelscited by 18,863
  3. 2013Efficient Estimation of Word Representations in Vector Spacecited by 4,375
  4. 2022LAION-5B: An open large-scale dataset for training next generation image-text modelscited by 4,152
  5. 2015Unsupervised Representation Learning with Deep Convolutional Generative Adversarial Networkscited by 2,054
  6. 2023Latent Consistency Models: Synthesizing High-Resolution Images with Few-Step Inferencecited by 846
  7. 2019Interpreting the Latent Space of GANs for Semantic Face Editingcited by 695
  8. 2020In-Domain GAN Inversion for Real Image Editingcited by 420
  9. 2019On Measuring Social Biases in Sentence Encoderscited by 398
  10. 2022Diffusion Models already have a Semantic Latent Spacecited by 328
  11. 2020Unsupervised Discovery of Interpretable Directions in the GAN Latent Spacecited by 289
  12. 2023LCM-LoRA: A Universal Stable-Diffusion Acceleration Modulecited by 211
10 more
  1. 2019GANalyze: Toward Visual Definitions of Cognitive Image Propertiescited by 193
  2. 2023Fair Diffusion: Instructing Text-to-Image Generation Models on Fairnesscited by 151
  3. 2017Accelerated Hierarchical Density Clusteringcited by 102
  4. 2020Controlling generative models with continuous factors of variationscited by 93
  5. 2023Discovering Interpretable Directions in the Semantic Latent Space of Diffusion Modelscited by 60
  6. 2020Navigating the GAN Parameter Space for Semantic Image Editingcited by 49
  7. 2025T2ISafety: Benchmark for Assessing Fairness, Toxicity, and Privacy in Image Generationcited by 48
  8. 2023NoiseCLR: A Contrastive Learning Approach for Unsupervised Discovery of Interpretable Directions in Diffusion Modelscited by 47
  9. 2023Unsupervised Discovery of Semantic Latent Directions in Diffusion Modelscited by 28
  10. 2023Food-500 Cap: A Fine-Grained Food Caption Benchmark for Evaluating Vision-Language Modelscited by 10

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 2.

2 papers.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2025BiasMap: Leveraging Cross-Attentions to Discover and Mitigate Hidden Social Biases in Text-to-Image Generation
  2. 2025Hidden Bias in the Machine: Stereotypes in Text-to-Image Models
  3. 2023Stable Diffusion Exposed: Gender Bias from Prompt to Image
  4. 2024Decoding Diffusion: A Scalable Framework for Unsupervised Analysis of Latent Space Biases and Representations Using Natural Language Prompts
  5. 2023Exploring Social Bias in Downstream Applications of Text-to-Image Foundation Models
  6. 2023Finetuning Text-to-Image Diffusion Models for Fairness
  7. 2023Word-Level Explanations for Analyzing Bias in Text-to-Image Models
  8. 2025Prompting Away Stereotypes? Evaluating Bias in Text-to-Image Models for Occupations