Adaptive Inference-Time Scaling via Cyclic Diffusion Search
This addresses adaptive inference-time scaling for diffusion model users, but it appears incremental as it builds on existing search-based methods.
The paper tackled the problem of fixed denoising schedules in diffusion models limiting adaptive computation during inference, and proposed ABCD, which improved performance across diverse tasks while maintaining computational efficiency.
Diffusion models have demonstrated strong generative capabilities across domains ranging from image synthesis to complex reasoning tasks. However, most inference-time scaling methods rely on fixed denoising schedules, limiting their ability to allocate computation based on instance difficulty or task-specific demands adaptively. We introduce the challenge of adaptive inference-time scaling-dynamically adjusting computational effort during inference-and propose Adaptive Bi-directional Cyclic Diffusion (ABCD), a flexible, search-based inference framework. ABCD refines outputs through bi-directional diffusion cycles while adaptively controlling exploration depth and termination. It comprises three components: Cyclic Diffusion Search, Automatic Exploration-Exploitation Balancing, and Adaptive Thinking Time. Experiments show that ABCD improves performance across diverse tasks while maintaining computational efficiency.