arXiv Machine Learning

Neural Succession: A Mesoscopic Theory of Invasion, Coexistence, and Stabilization in Continual Learning

arXiv AI
Sep 16

ReDraft, Don't Just Distill: Reference-Driven Revision for Continual VLLM Post-Training

ReDraft is a reference‑driven revision method for continual post‑training of large multimodal language models. It uses the model’s own incorrect outputs as references, revises them, verifies the revisions, and fine‑tunes on the accepted ones, thereby combining explicit supervision with policy proximity. On tasks such as Counting, Clock Reading, and Jigsaw, ReDraft outperforms standard supervised fine‑tuning and on‑policy methods, achieving higher target‑task gains while dramatically reducing forgetting.

By Zhihao Zhang, Mingqi Wu, Qiaole Dong, Enyu Zhou, Shuo Li, Boyang Liu, Jiazheng Zhang, Honglin Guo, Xin Guo, Shaofan Liu, Junzhe Wang, Dingwei Zhu, Zhiheng Xi, Minlong Peng, Yuan Hua, Qi Zhang, Tao Gui, Xuanjing Huang
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 18

A Noise Optimum in Rehearsal-Free Continual Learning: Isolation, Mechanism, and Scope

The paper demonstrates that adding stochastic noise to a consolidation rule can improve a neural network’s retention of earlier tasks up to an optimal level, after which performance degrades, forming an inverted‑U relationship. Through simulations on related‑task continual‑learning benchmarks, the authors isolate the conditions that produce this optimum, showing it requires coherent restoration toward consolidated weights and is linked to the noise variance. The study further maps the scope of the effect, noting it depends on shared task structure and diminishes with more tasks, while a single‑seed hardware demonstration is referenced elsewhere.

By Gunner Levi Howe