mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Forget Many, Forget Right: Scalable and Precise Concept Unlearning in Diffusion Models

arXiv 2601.06162 ↗First posted 6 Jan 2026cs.LG cs.CVcited by 4

On the map: Diffusion models → Robustness, privacy and adversarial aspects

also in 1 more
Abstract (arXiv)

Text-to-image diffusion models have achieved remarkable progress, yet their use raises copyright and misuse concerns, prompting research into machine unlearning. However, extending multi-concept unlearning to large-scale scenarios remains difficult due to three challenges: (i) conflicting weight updates that hinder unlearning or degrade generation; (ii) imprecise mechanisms that cause collateral damage to similar content; and (iii) reliance on additional data or modules, creating scalability bottlenecks. To address these, we propose Scalable-Precise Concept Unlearning (ScaPre), a unified framework tailored for large-scale unlearning. ScaPre introduces a conflict-aware stable design, integrating spectral trace regularization and geometry alignment to stabilize optimization, suppress conflicts, and preserve global structure. Furthermore, an Informax Decoupler identifies concept-relevant parameters and adaptively reweights updates, strictly confining unlearning to the target subspace. ScaPre yields an efficient closed-form solution without requiring auxiliary data or sub-models. Comprehensive experiments on objects, styles, and explicit content demonstrate that ScaPre effectively removes target concepts while maintaining generation quality. It forgets up to × 5 more concepts than the best baseline within acceptable quality limits, achieving state-of-the-art precision and efficiency for large-scale unlearning. Code is available at https://github.com/kaiyuan02415/scapre

Key facts. Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Robustness, privacy and adversarial aspects, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models. Builds on 45 of its 52 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 6 Jan 2026.

Builds on

45 of 52 references.

Closest ancestors · 16

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2025Sculpting Memory: Multi-Concept Forgetting in Diffusion Models via Dynamic Mask and Concept-Aware Optimization12 Apr
  2. 2025SPEED: Scalable, Precise, and Efficient Concept Erasure for Diffusion Models10 Mar
  3. 2025CE-SDWV: Effective and Efficient Concept Erasure for Text-to-Image Diffusion Models via a Semantic-Driven Word Vocabulary26 Jan
  4. 2024Reliable and Efficient Concept Erasure of Text-to-Image Diffusion Models17 Jul
  5. 2024ConceptPrune: Concept Editing in Diffusion Models via Skilled Neuron Pruning29 May
  6. 2024MACE: Mass Concept Erasure in Diffusion Models10 Mar
  7. 2023One-Dimensional Adapter to Rule Them All: Concepts, Diffusion Models and Erasing Applications26 Dec
  8. 2023MMA-Diffusion: MultiModal Attack on Diffusion Models29 Nov
  9. 2023SalUn: Empowering Machine Unlearning via Gradient-based Weight Saliency in Both Image Classification and Generation19 Oct
  10. 2023To Generate or Not? Safety-Driven Unlearned Diffusion Models Are Still Easy To Generate Unsafe Images ... For Now18 Oct
  11. 2023Ring-A-Bell! How Reliable are Concept Removal Methods for Diffusion Models?16 Oct
  12. 2023Unified Concept Editing in Diffusion Models25 Aug
4 more
  1. 2023Forget-Me-Not: Learning to Forget in Text-to-Image Diffusion Models30 Mar
  2. 2023Ablating Concepts in Text-to-Image Diffusion Models23 Mar
  3. 2023Erasing Concepts from Diffusion Models13 Mar
  4. 2022Safe Latent Diffusion: Mitigating Inappropriate Degeneration in Diffusion Models9 Nov

Other references · 29

  1. 2021High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Modelscited by 18,694
  2. 2014Microsoft COCO: Common Objects in Contextcited by 17,498
  3. 2022Hierarchical Text-Conditional Image Generation with CLIP Latentscited by 6,539
  4. 2022Photorealistic Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with Deep Language Understandingcited by 6,322
  5. 2023SDXL: Improving Latent Diffusion Models for High-Resolution Image Synthesiscited by 4,290
  6. 2021GLIDE: Towards Photorealistic Image Generation and Editing with Text-Guided Diffusion Modelscited by 3,595
  7. 2019Machine Unlearningcited by 1,020
  8. 2021Ethical and social risks of harm from Language Modelscited by 957
  9. 2024SiT: Exploring Flow and Diffusion-based Generative Models with Scalable Interpolant Transformerscited by 707
  10. 2019Certified Data Removal from Machine Learning Modelscited by 512
  11. 2022Knowledge Unlearning for Mitigating Privacy Risks in Language Modelscited by 424
  12. 2020Amnesiac Machine Learningcited by 305
17 more
  1. 2022CogView2: Faster and Better Text-to-Image Generation via Hierarchical Transformerscited by 305
  2. 2022A Survey of Machine Unlearningcited by 298
  3. 2020DeepFakes and Beyond: A Survey of Face Manipulation and Fake Detectioncited by 231
  4. 2023Model Sparsity Can Simplify Machine Unlearningcited by 206
  5. 2023A Survey on Video Diffusion Modelscited by 203
  6. 2021Process for Adapting Language Models to Society (PALMS) with Values-Targeted Datasetscited by 179
  7. 2023Selective Amnesia: A Continual Learning Approach to Forgetting in Deep Generative Modelscited by 175
  8. 2018The Malicious Use of Artificial Intelligence: Forecasting, Prevention, and Mitigationcited by 159
  9. 2023Editing Implicit Assumptions in Text-to-Image Diffusion Modelscited by 128
  10. 2021LAFITE: Towards Language-Free Training for Text-to-Image Generationcited by 126
  11. 2023Machine Unlearning: Solutions and Challengescited by 85
  12. 2024Machine Unlearning in Generative AI: A Surveycited by 49
  13. 2024Machine Unlearning: A Comprehensive Surveycited by 33
  14. 2024A Review on Machine Unlearningcited by 30
  15. 2023The Evolution of Distributed Systems for Graph Neural Networks and their Origin in Graph Processing and Deep Learning: A Surveycited by 13
  16. 2025SEMU: Singular Value Decomposition for Efficient Machine Unlearningcited by 13
  17. 2025Position: Bridge the Gaps between Machine Unlearning and AI Regulationcited by 5

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2026: 4.

4 papers.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2025Continual Unlearning for Text-to-Image Diffusion Models: A Regularization Perspective
  2. 2024Unstable Unlearning: The Hidden Risk of Concept Resurgence in Diffusion Models
  3. 2025Concept Unlearning by Modeling Key Steps of Diffusion Process
  4. 2026eval-unlearn: Benchmarking unlearning in Text-to-Image Diffusion Models
  5. 2026Projected Gradient Unlearning for Text-to-Image Diffusion Models: Defending Against Concept Revival Attacks
  6. 2024Unlearning Concepts in Diffusion Model via Concept Domain Correction and Concept Preserving Gradient
  7. 2025CURE: Concept Unlearning via Orthogonal Representation Editing in Diffusion Models
  8. 2026CoreUnlearn: Rethinking Concept Unlearning through Disentangled Component-Level Erasure in Text-guided Diffusion Models