h-index79
30papers
285citations
Novelty51%
AI Score56

30 Papers

LGSep 18, 2023Code
Looking through the past: better knowledge retention for generative replay in continual learning

Valeriya Khan, Sebastian Cygert, Kamil Deja et al.

In this work, we improve the generative replay in a continual learning setting to perform well on challenging scenarios. Current generative rehearsal methods are usually benchmarked on small and simple datasets as they are not powerful enough to generate more complex data with a greater number of classes. We notice that in VAE-based generative replay, this could be attributed to the fact that the generated features are far from the original ones when mapped to the latent space. Therefore, we propose three modifications that allow the model to learn and generate complex data. More specifically, we incorporate the distillation in latent space between the current and previous models to reduce feature drift. Additionally, a latent matching for the reconstruction and original data is proposed to improve generated features alignment. Further, based on the observation that the reconstructions are better for preserving knowledge, we add the cycling of generations through the previously trained model to make them closer to the original data. Our method outperforms other generative replay methods in various scenarios. Code available at https://github.com/valeriya-khan/looking-through-the-past.

ASJan 11, 2023
Modelling low-resource accents without accent-specific TTS frontend

Georgi Tinchev, Marta Czarnowska, Kamil Deja et al. · amazon-science

This work focuses on modelling a speaker's accent that does not have a dedicated text-to-speech (TTS) frontend, including a grapheme-to-phoneme (G2P) module. Prior work on modelling accents assumes a phonetic transcription is available for the target accent, which might not be the case for low-resource, regional accents. In our work, we propose an approach whereby we first augment the target accent data to sound like the donor voice via voice conversion, then train a multi-speaker multi-accent TTS model on the combination of recordings and synthetic data, to generate the donor's voice speaking in the target accent. Throughout the procedure, we use a TTS frontend developed for the same language but a different accent. We show qualitative and quantitative analysis where the proposed strategy achieves state-of-the-art results compared to other generative models. Our work demonstrates that low resource accents can be modelled with relatively little data and without developing an accent-specific TTS frontend. Audio samples of our model converting to multiple accents are available on our web page.

LGMay 31, 2022
On Analyzing Generative and Denoising Capabilities of Diffusion-based Deep Generative Models

Kamil Deja, Anna Kuzina, Tomasz Trzciński et al.

Diffusion-based Deep Generative Models (DDGMs) offer state-of-the-art performance in generative modeling. Their main strength comes from their unique setup in which a model (the backward diffusion process) is trained to reverse the forward diffusion process, which gradually adds noise to the input signal. Although DDGMs are well studied, it is still unclear how the small amount of noise is transformed during the backward diffusion process. Here, we focus on analyzing this problem to gain more insight into the behavior of DDGMs and their denoising and generative capabilities. We observe a fluid transition point that changes the functionality of the backward diffusion process from generating a (corrupted) image from noise to denoising the corrupted image to the final sample. Based on this observation, we postulate to divide a DDGM into two parts: a denoiser and a generator. The denoiser could be parameterized by a denoising auto-encoder, while the generator is a diffusion-based model with its own set of parameters. We experimentally validate our proposition, showing its pros and cons.

LGJan 31, 2023
Learning Data Representations with Joint Diffusion Models

Kamil Deja, Tomasz Trzcinski, Jakub M. Tomczak

Joint machine learning models that allow synthesizing and classifying data often offer uneven performance between those tasks or are unstable to train. In this work, we depart from a set of empirical observations that indicate the usefulness of internal representations built by contemporary deep diffusion-based generative models not only for generating but also predicting. We then propose to extend the vanilla diffusion model with a classifier that allows for stable joint end-to-end training with shared parameterization between those objectives. The resulting joint diffusion model outperforms recent state-of-the-art hybrid methods in terms of both classification and generation quality on all evaluated benchmarks. On top of our joint training approach, we present how we can directly benefit from shared generative and discriminative representations by introducing a method for visual counterfactual explanations.

LGDec 10, 2025Code
Membership and Dataset Inference Attacks on Large Audio Generative Models

Jakub Proboszcz, Paweł Kochanski, Karol Korszun et al.

Generative audio models, based on diffusion and autoregressive architectures, have advanced rapidly in both quality and expressiveness. This progress, however, raises pressing copyright concerns, as such models are often trained on vast corpora of artistic and commercial works. A central question is whether one can reliably verify if an artist's material was included in training, thereby providing a means for copyright holders to protect their content. In this work, we investigate the feasibility of such verification through membership inference attacks (MIA) on open-source generative audio models, which attempt to determine whether a specific audio sample was part of the training set. Our empirical results show that membership inference alone is of limited effectiveness at scale, as the per-sample membership signal is weak for models trained on large and diverse datasets. However, artists and media owners typically hold collections of works rather than isolated samples. Building on prior work in text and vision domains, in this work we focus on dataset inference (DI), which aggregates diverse membership evidence across multiple samples. We find that DI is successful in the audio domain, offering a more practical mechanism for assessing whether an artist's works contributed to model training. Our results suggest DI as a promising direction for copyright protection and dataset accountability in the era of large audio generative models.

CVJul 4, 2022
Selectively increasing the diversity of GAN-generated samples

Jan Dubiński, Kamil Deja, Sandro Wenzel et al.

Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) are powerful models able to synthesize data samples closely resembling the distribution of real data, yet the diversity of those generated samples is limited due to the so-called mode collapse phenomenon observed in GANs. Especially prone to mode collapse are conditional GANs, which tend to ignore the input noise vector and focus on the conditional information. Recent methods proposed to mitigate this limitation increase the diversity of generated samples, yet they reduce the performance of the models when similarity of samples is required. To address this shortcoming, we propose a novel method to selectively increase the diversity of GAN-generated samples. By adding a simple, yet effective regularization to the training loss function we encourage the generator to discover new data modes for inputs related to diverse outputs while generating consistent samples for the remaining ones. More precisely, we maximise the ratio of distances between generated images and input latent vectors scaling the effect according to the diversity of samples for a given conditional input. We show the superiority of our method in a synthetic benchmark as well as a real-life scenario of simulating data from the Zero Degree Calorimeter of ALICE experiment in LHC, CERN.

LGMar 27, 2023
Exploring Continual Learning of Diffusion Models

Michał Zając, Kamil Deja, Anna Kuzina et al.

Diffusion models have achieved remarkable success in generating high-quality images thanks to their novel training procedures applied to unprecedented amounts of data. However, training a diffusion model from scratch is computationally expensive. This highlights the need to investigate the possibility of training these models iteratively, reusing computation while the data distribution changes. In this study, we take the first step in this direction and evaluate the continual learning (CL) properties of diffusion models. We begin by benchmarking the most common CL methods applied to Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models (DDPMs), where we note the strong performance of the experience replay with the reduced rehearsal coefficient. Furthermore, we provide insights into the dynamics of forgetting, which exhibit diverse behavior across diffusion timesteps. We also uncover certain pitfalls of using the bits-per-dimension metric for evaluating CL.

CVJun 23, 2023
Machine Learning methods for simulating particle response in the Zero Degree Calorimeter at the ALICE experiment, CERN

Jan Dubiński, Kamil Deja, Sandro Wenzel et al.

Currently, over half of the computing power at CERN GRID is used to run High Energy Physics simulations. The recent updates at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) create the need for developing more efficient simulation methods. In particular, there exists a demand for a fast simulation of the neutron Zero Degree Calorimeter, where existing Monte Carlo-based methods impose a significant computational burden. We propose an alternative approach to the problem that leverages machine learning. Our solution utilises neural network classifiers and generative models to directly simulate the response of the calorimeter. In particular, we examine the performance of variational autoencoders and generative adversarial networks, expanding the GAN architecture by an additional regularisation network and a simple, yet effective postprocessing step. Our approach increases the simulation speed by 2 orders of magnitude while maintaining the high fidelity of the simulation.

LGJan 29, 2025Code
SAeUron: Interpretable Concept Unlearning in Diffusion Models with Sparse Autoencoders

Bartosz Cywiński, Kamil Deja

Diffusion models, while powerful, can inadvertently generate harmful or undesirable content, raising significant ethical and safety concerns. Recent machine unlearning approaches offer potential solutions but often lack transparency, making it difficult to understand the changes they introduce to the base model. In this work, we introduce SAeUron, a novel method leveraging features learned by sparse autoencoders (SAEs) to remove unwanted concepts in text-to-image diffusion models. First, we demonstrate that SAEs, trained in an unsupervised manner on activations from multiple denoising timesteps of the diffusion model, capture sparse and interpretable features corresponding to specific concepts. Building on this, we propose a feature selection method that enables precise interventions on model activations to block targeted content while preserving overall performance. Our evaluation shows that SAeUron outperforms existing approaches on the UnlearnCanvas benchmark for concepts and style unlearning, and effectively eliminates nudity when evaluated with I2P. Moreover, we show that with a single SAE, we can remove multiple concepts simultaneously and that in contrast to other methods, SAeUron mitigates the possibility of generating unwanted content under adversarial attack. Code and checkpoints are available at https://github.com/cywinski/SAeUron.

LGOct 18, 2023
Bayesian Flow Networks in Continual Learning

Mateusz Pyla, Kamil Deja, Bartłomiej Twardowski et al.

Bayesian Flow Networks (BFNs) has been recently proposed as one of the most promising direction to universal generative modelling, having ability to learn any of the data type. Their power comes from the expressiveness of neural networks and Bayesian inference which make them suitable in the context of continual learning. We delve into the mechanics behind BFNs and conduct the experiments to empirically verify the generative capabilities on non-stationary data.

53.4CVMar 29Code
Attention, May I Have Your Decision? Localizing Generative Choices in Diffusion Models

Katarzyna Zaleska, Łukasz Popek, Monika Wysoczańska et al.

Text-to-image diffusion models exhibit remarkable generative capabilities, yet their internal operations remain opaque, particularly when handling prompts that are not fully descriptive. In such scenarios, models must make implicit decisions to generate details not explicitly specified in the text. This work investigates the hypothesis that this decision-making process is not diffuse but is computationally localized within the model's architecture. While existing localization techniques focus on prompt-related interventions, we notice that such explicit conditioning may differ from implicit decisions. Therefore, we introduce a probing-based localization technique to identify the layers with the highest attribute separability for concepts. Our findings indicate that the resolution of ambiguous concepts is governed principally by self-attention layers, identifying them as the most effective point for intervention. Based on this discovery, we propose ICM (Implicit Choice-Modification) - a precise steering method that applies targeted interventions to a small subset of layers. Extensive experiments confirm that intervening on these specific self-attention layers yields superior debiasing performance compared to existing state-of-the-art methods, minimizing artifacts common to less precise approaches. The code is available at https://github.com/kzaleskaa/icm.

CVAug 28, 2025Code
ExpertSim: Fast Particle Detector Simulation Using Mixture-of-Generative-Experts

Patryk Będkowski, Jan Dubiński, Filip Szatkowski et al.

Simulating detector responses is a crucial part of understanding the inner workings of particle collisions in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Such simulations are currently performed with statistical Monte Carlo methods, which are computationally expensive and put a significant strain on CERN's computational grid. Therefore, recent proposals advocate for generative machine learning methods to enable more efficient simulations. However, the distribution of the data varies significantly across the simulations, which is hard to capture with out-of-the-box methods. In this study, we present ExpertSim - a deep learning simulation approach tailored for the Zero Degree Calorimeter in the ALICE experiment. Our method utilizes a Mixture-of-Generative-Experts architecture, where each expert specializes in simulating a different subset of the data. This allows for a more precise and efficient generation process, as each expert focuses on a specific aspect of the calorimeter response. ExpertSim not only improves accuracy, but also provides a significant speedup compared to the traditional Monte-Carlo methods, offering a promising solution for high-efficiency detector simulations in particle physics experiments at CERN. We make the code available at https://github.com/patrick-bedkowski/expertsim-mix-of-generative-experts.

CVOct 31, 2024Code
There and Back Again: On the relation between Noise and Image Inversions in Diffusion Models

Łukasz Staniszewski, Łukasz Kuciński, Kamil Deja

Diffusion Models achieve state-of-the-art performance in generating new samples but lack a low-dimensional latent space that encodes the data into editable features. Inversion-based methods address this by reversing the denoising trajectory, transferring images to their approximated starting noise. In this work, we thoroughly analyze this procedure and focus on the relation between the initial noise, the generated samples, and their corresponding latent encodings obtained through the DDIM inversion. First, we show that latents exhibit structural patterns in the form of less diverse noise predicted for smooth image areas (e.g., plain sky). Through a series of analyses, we trace this issue to the first inversion steps, which fail to provide accurate and diverse noise. Consequently, the DDIM inversion space is notably less manipulative than the original noise. We show that prior inversion methods do not fully resolve this issue, but our simple fix, where we replace the first DDIM Inversion steps with a forward diffusion process, successfully decorrelates latent encodings and enables higher quality editions and interpolations. The code is available at https://github.com/luk-st/taba.

SDFeb 12
TADA! Tuning Audio Diffusion Models through Activation Steering

Łukasz Staniszewski, Katarzyna Zaleska, Mateusz Modrzejewski et al.

Audio diffusion models can synthesize high-fidelity music from text, yet their internal mechanisms for representing high-level concepts remain poorly understood. In this work, we use activation patching to demonstrate that distinct semantic musical concepts, such as the presence of specific instruments, vocals, or genre characteristics, are controlled by a small, shared subset of attention layers in state-of-the-art audio diffusion architectures. Next, we demonstrate that applying Contrastive Activation Addition and Sparse Autoencoders in these layers enables more precise control over the generated audio, indicating a direct benefit of the specialization phenomenon. By steering activations of the identified layers, we can alter specific musical elements with high precision, such as modulating tempo or changing a track's mood.

LGMar 6, 2024
GUIDE: Guidance-based Incremental Learning with Diffusion Models

Bartosz Cywiński, Kamil Deja, Tomasz Trzciński et al.

We introduce GUIDE, a novel continual learning approach that directs diffusion models to rehearse samples at risk of being forgotten. Existing generative strategies combat catastrophic forgetting by randomly sampling rehearsal examples from a generative model. Such an approach contradicts buffer-based approaches where sampling strategy plays an important role. We propose to bridge this gap by incorporating classifier guidance into the diffusion process to produce rehearsal examples specifically targeting information forgotten by a continuously trained model. This approach enables the generation of samples from preceding task distributions, which are more likely to be misclassified in the context of recently encountered classes. Our experimental results show that GUIDE significantly reduces catastrophic forgetting, outperforming conventional random sampling approaches and surpassing recent state-of-the-art methods in continual learning with generative replay.

INS-DETDec 21, 2023
Machine-learning-based particle identification with missing data

Miłosz Kasak, Kamil Deja, Maja Karwowska et al.

In this work, we introduce a novel method for Particle Identification (PID) within the scope of the ALICE experiment at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Identifying products of ultrarelativisitc collisions delivered by the LHC is one of the crucial objectives of ALICE. Typically employed PID methods rely on hand-crafted selections, which compare experimental data to theoretical simulations. To improve the performance of the baseline methods, novel approaches use machine learning models that learn the proper assignment in a classification task. However, because of the various detection techniques used by different subdetectors, as well as the limited detector efficiency and acceptance, produced particles do not always yield signals in all of the ALICE components. This results in data with missing values. Machine learning techniques cannot be trained with such examples, so a significant part of the data is skipped during training. In this work, we propose the first method for PID that can be trained with all of the available data examples, including incomplete ones. Our approach improves the PID purity and efficiency of the selected sample for all investigated particle species.

CVFeb 14, 2025
Precise Parameter Localization for Textual Generation in Diffusion Models

Łukasz Staniszewski, Bartosz Cywiński, Franziska Boenisch et al.

Novel diffusion models can synthesize photo-realistic images with integrated high-quality text. Surprisingly, we demonstrate through attention activation patching that only less than 1% of diffusion models' parameters, all contained in attention layers, influence the generation of textual content within the images. Building on this observation, we improve textual generation efficiency and performance by targeting cross and joint attention layers of diffusion models. We introduce several applications that benefit from localizing the layers responsible for textual content generation. We first show that a LoRA-based fine-tuning solely of the localized layers enhances, even more, the general text-generation capabilities of large diffusion models while preserving the quality and diversity of the diffusion models' generations. Then, we demonstrate how we can use the localized layers to edit textual content in generated images. Finally, we extend this idea to the practical use case of preventing the generation of toxic text in a cost-free manner. In contrast to prior work, our localization approach is broadly applicable across various diffusion model architectures, including U-Net (e.g., LDM and SDXL) and transformer-based (e.g., DeepFloyd IF and Stable Diffusion 3), utilizing diverse text encoders (e.g., from CLIP to the large language models like T5). Project page available at https://t2i-text-loc.github.io/.

LGNov 12, 2024
Joint Diffusion models in Continual Learning

Paweł Skierś, Kamil Deja

In this work, we introduce JDCL - a new method for continual learning with generative rehearsal based on joint diffusion models. Neural networks suffer from catastrophic forgetting defined as abrupt loss in the model's performance when retrained with additional data coming from a different distribution. Generative-replay-based continual learning methods try to mitigate this issue by retraining a model with a combination of new and rehearsal data sampled from a generative model. In this work, we propose to extend this idea by combining a continually trained classifier with a diffusion-based generative model into a single - jointly optimized neural network. We show that such shared parametrization, combined with the knowledge distillation technique allows for stable adaptation to new tasks without catastrophic forgetting. We evaluate our approach on several benchmarks, where it outperforms recent state-of-the-art generative replay techniques. Additionally, we extend our method to the semi-supervised continual learning setup, where it outperforms competing buffer-based replay techniques, and evaluate, in a self-supervised manner, the quality of trained representations.

HEP-EXMar 26, 2024
Particle identification with machine learning from incomplete data in the ALICE experiment

Maja Karwowska, Łukasz Graczykowski, Kamil Deja et al.

The ALICE experiment at the LHC measures properties of the strongly interacting matter formed in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions. Such studies require accurate particle identification (PID). ALICE provides PID information via several detectors for particles with momentum from about 100 MeV/c up to 20 GeV/c. Traditionally, particles are selected with rectangular cuts. A much better performance can be achieved with machine learning (ML) methods. Our solution uses multiple neural networks (NN) serving as binary classifiers. Moreover, we extended our particle classifier with Feature Set Embedding and attention in order to train on data with incomplete samples. We also present the integration of the ML project with the ALICE analysis software, and we discuss domain adaptation, the ML technique needed to transfer the knowledge between simulated and real experimental data.

LGMay 22, 2024
Particle physics DL-simulation with control over generated data properties

Karol Rogoziński, Jan Dubiński, Przemysław Rokita et al.

The research of innovative methods aimed at reducing costs and shortening the time needed for simulation, going beyond conventional approaches based on Monte Carlo methods, has been sparked by the development of collision simulations at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Deep learning generative methods including VAE, GANs and diffusion models have been used for this purpose. Although they are much faster and simpler than standard approaches, they do not always keep high fidelity of the simulated data. This work aims to mitigate this issue, by providing an alternative solution to currently employed algorithms by introducing the mechanism of control over the generated data properties. To achieve this, we extend the recently introduced CorrVAE, which enables user-defined parameter manipulation of the generated output. We adapt the model to the problem of particle physics simulation. The proposed solution achieved promising results, demonstrating control over the parameters of the generated output and constituting an alternative for simulating the ZDC calorimeter in the ALICE experiment at CERN.

LGFeb 10
ELROND: Exploring and decomposing intrinsic capabilities of diffusion models

Paweł Skierś, Tomasz Trzciński, Kamil Deja

A single text prompt passed to a diffusion model often yields a wide range of visual outputs determined solely by stochastic process, leaving users with no direct control over which specific semantic variations appear in the image. While existing unsupervised methods attempt to analyze these variations via output features, they omit the underlying generative process. In this work, we propose a framework to disentangle these semantic directions directly within the input embedding space. To that end, we collect a set of gradients obtained by backpropagating the differences between stochastic realizations of a fixed prompt that we later decompose into meaningful steering directions with either Principal Components Analysis or Sparse Autoencoder. Our approach yields three key contributions: (1) it isolates interpretable, steerable directions for precise, fine-grained control over a single concept; (2) it effectively mitigates mode collapse in distilled models by reintroducing lost diversity; and (3) it establishes a novel estimator for concept complexity under a specific model, based on the dimensionality of the discovered subspace.

CVNov 12, 2024
Mediffusion: Joint Diffusion for Self-Explainable Semi-Supervised Classification and Medical Image Generation

Joanna Kaleta, Paweł Skierś, Jan Dubiński et al.

We introduce Mediffusion -- a new method for semi-supervised learning with explainable classification based on a joint diffusion model. The medical imaging domain faces unique challenges due to scarce data labelling -- insufficient for standard training, and critical nature of the applications that require high performance, confidence, and explainability of the models. In this work, we propose to tackle those challenges with a single model that combines standard classification with a diffusion-based generative task in a single shared parametrisation. By sharing representations, our model effectively learns from both labeled and unlabeled data while at the same time providing accurate explanations through counterfactual examples. In our experiments, we show that our Mediffusion achieves results comparable to recent semi-supervised methods while providing more reliable and precise explanations.

LGJun 5, 2024
Deep Generative Models for Proton Zero Degree Calorimeter Simulations in ALICE, CERN

Patryk Będkowski, Jan Dubiński, Kamil Deja et al.

Simulating detector responses is a crucial part of understanding the inner-workings of particle collisions in the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The current reliance on statistical Monte-Carlo simulations strains CERN's computational grid, underscoring the urgency for more efficient alternatives. Addressing these challenges, recent proposals advocate for generative machine learning methods. In this study, we present an innovative deep learning simulation approach tailored for the proton Zero Degree Calorimeter in the ALICE experiment. Leveraging a Generative Adversarial Network model with Selective Diversity Increase loss, we directly simulate calorimeter responses. To enhance its capabilities in modeling a broad range of calorimeter response intensities, we expand the SDI-GAN architecture with additional regularization. Moreover, to improve the spatial fidelity of the generated data, we introduce an auxiliary regressor network. Our method offers a significant speedup when comparing to the traditional Monte-Carlo based approaches.

DATA-ANJun 5, 2024
Generative Diffusion Models for Fast Simulations of Particle Collisions at CERN

Mikołaj Kita, Jan Dubiński, Przemysław Rokita et al.

In High Energy Physics simulations play a crucial role in unraveling the complexities of particle collision experiments within CERN's Large Hadron Collider. Machine learning simulation methods have garnered attention as promising alternatives to traditional approaches. While existing methods mainly employ Variational Autoencoders (VAEs) or Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), recent advancements highlight the efficacy of diffusion models as state-of-the-art generative machine learning methods. We present the first simulation for Zero Degree Calorimeter (ZDC) at the ALICE experiment based on diffusion models, achieving the highest fidelity compared to existing baselines. We perform an analysis of trade-offs between generation times and the simulation quality. The results indicate a significant potential of latent diffusion model due to its rapid generation time.

LGDec 21, 2023
Adapt & Align: Continual Learning with Generative Models Latent Space Alignment

Kamil Deja, Bartosz Cywiński, Jan Rybarczyk et al.

In this work, we introduce Adapt & Align, a method for continual learning of neural networks by aligning latent representations in generative models. Neural Networks suffer from abrupt loss in performance when retrained with additional training data from different distributions. At the same time, training with additional data without access to the previous examples rarely improves the model's performance. In this work, we propose a new method that mitigates those problems by employing generative models and splitting the process of their update into two parts. In the first one, we train a local generative model using only data from a new task. In the second phase, we consolidate latent representations from the local model with a global one that encodes knowledge of all past experiences. We introduce our approach with Variational Auteoncoders and Generative Adversarial Networks. Moreover, we show how we can use those generative models as a general method for continual knowledge consolidation that can be used in downstream tasks such as classification.

LGJan 17, 2022
Logarithmic Continual Learning

Wojciech Masarczyk, Paweł Wawrzyński, Daniel Marczak et al.

We introduce a neural network architecture that logarithmically reduces the number of self-rehearsal steps in the generative rehearsal of continually learned models. In continual learning (CL), training samples come in subsequent tasks, and the trained model can access only a single task at a time. To replay previous samples, contemporary CL methods bootstrap generative models and train them recursively with a combination of current and regenerated past data. This recurrence leads to superfluous computations as the same past samples are regenerated after each task, and the reconstruction quality successively degrades. In this work, we address these limitations and propose a new generative rehearsal architecture that requires at most logarithmic number of retraining for each sample. Our approach leverages allocation of past data in a~set of generative models such that most of them do not require retraining after a~task. The experimental evaluation of our logarithmic continual learning approach shows the superiority of our method with respect to the state-of-the-art generative rehearsal methods.

CVSep 4, 2021
On robustness of generative representations against catastrophic forgetting

Wojciech Masarczyk, Kamil Deja, Tomasz Trzciński

Catastrophic forgetting of previously learned knowledge while learning new tasks is a widely observed limitation of contemporary neural networks. Although many continual learning methods are proposed to mitigate this drawback, the main question remains unanswered: what is the root cause of catastrophic forgetting? In this work, we aim at answering this question by posing and validating a set of research hypotheses related to the specificity of representations built internally by neural models. More specifically, we design a set of empirical evaluations that compare the robustness of representations in discriminative and generative models against catastrophic forgetting. We observe that representations learned by discriminative models are more prone to catastrophic forgetting than their generative counterparts, which sheds new light on the advantages of developing generative models for continual learning. Finally, our work opens new research pathways and possibilities to adopt generative models in continual learning beyond mere replay mechanisms.

LGJun 23, 2021
Multiband VAE: Latent Space Alignment for Knowledge Consolidation in Continual Learning

Kamil Deja, Paweł Wawrzyński, Wojciech Masarczyk et al.

We propose a new method for unsupervised generative continual learning through realignment of Variational Autoencoder's latent space. Deep generative models suffer from catastrophic forgetting in the same way as other neural structures. Recent generative continual learning works approach this problem and try to learn from new data without forgetting previous knowledge. However, those methods usually focus on artificial scenarios where examples share almost no similarity between subsequent portions of data - an assumption not realistic in the real-life applications of continual learning. In this work, we identify this limitation and posit the goal of generative continual learning as a knowledge accumulation task. We solve it by continuously aligning latent representations of new data that we call bands in additional latent space where examples are encoded independently of their source task. In addition, we introduce a method for controlled forgetting of past data that simplifies this process. On top of the standard continual learning benchmarks, we propose a novel challenging knowledge consolidation scenario and show that the proposed approach outperforms state-of-the-art by up to twofold across all experiments and the additional real-life evaluation. To our knowledge, Multiband VAE is the first method to show forward and backward knowledge transfer in generative continual learning.

LGNov 25, 2020
BinPlay: A Binary Latent Autoencoder for Generative Replay Continual Learning

Kamil Deja, Paweł Wawrzyński, Daniel Marczak et al.

We introduce a binary latent space autoencoder architecture to rehearse training samples for the continual learning of neural networks. The ability to extend the knowledge of a model with new data without forgetting previously learned samples is a fundamental requirement in continual learning. Existing solutions address it by either replaying past data from memory, which is unsustainable with growing training data, or by reconstructing past samples with generative models that are trained to generalize beyond training data and, hence, miss important details of individual samples. In this paper, we take the best of both worlds and introduce a novel generative rehearsal approach called BinPlay. Its main objective is to find a quality-preserving encoding of past samples into precomputed binary codes living in the autoencoder's binary latent space. Since we parametrize the formula for precomputing the codes only on the chronological indices of the training samples, the autoencoder is able to compute the binary embeddings of rehearsed samples on the fly without the need to keep them in memory. Evaluation on three benchmark datasets shows up to a twofold accuracy improvement of BinPlay versus competing generative replay methods.

LGJun 11, 2020
End-to-end Sinkhorn Autoencoder with Noise Generator

Kamil Deja, Jan Dubiński, Piotr Nowak et al.

In this work, we propose a novel end-to-end sinkhorn autoencoder with noise generator for efficient data collection simulation. Simulating processes that aim at collecting experimental data is crucial for multiple real-life applications, including nuclear medicine, astronomy and high energy physics. Contemporary methods, such as Monte Carlo algorithms, provide high-fidelity results at a price of high computational cost. Multiple attempts are taken to reduce this burden, e.g. using generative approaches based on Generative Adversarial Networks or Variational Autoencoders. Although such methods are much faster, they are often unstable in training and do not allow sampling from an entire data distribution. To address these shortcomings, we introduce a novel method dubbed end-to-end Sinkhorn Autoencoder, that leverages sinkhorn algorithm to explicitly align distribution of encoded real data examples and generated noise. More precisely, we extend autoencoder architecture by adding a deterministic neural network trained to map noise from a known distribution onto autoencoder latent space representing data distribution. We optimise the entire model jointly. Our method outperforms competing approaches on a challenging dataset of simulation data from Zero Degree Calorimeters of ALICE experiment in LHC. as well as standard benchmarks, such as MNIST and CelebA.