arXiv Machine Learning

The Emergence of Reproducibility and Generalizability in Diffusion Models

arXiv:2310. 05264v5 Announce Type: replace Abstract: In this work, we investigate an intriguing and prevalent phenomenon of diffusion models which we term as "consistent model reproducibility": given the same starting noise input and a deterministic sampler, different diffusion models often yield remarkably similar outputs.

arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 10

Noise in Diffusion Models Is a Learnable Input

The paper argues that the concrete random noise used in diffusion models is not merely a passive perturbation but a learnable input that can be exploited by the model. By analyzing how clean data and realized noise jointly form the noisy input, the authors show that the model can learn regularities in the data or in the noise structure, and that these two routes can interact. Experiments on MNIST and CIFAR‑10 using pseudorandom streams demonstrate that structured‑noise training can reduce prediction loss, but this advantage disappears when test noise is replaced with IID noise, indicating that the learned dependence is tied to the specific noise structure.

By Shengzhi Deng, Chenqi Ye, Yanze Guo
arXiv AI
3d ago

Distilling Diffusion Score Discrepancy for Efficient Training Data Attribution

The paper introduces a new method for training data attribution in diffusion models called TID, which uses a local score discrepancy measure and can be estimated without retraining. It further distills this approach into TIDE, a forward‑only student that reproduces the teacher’s rankings using internal activations, achieving comparable accuracy at dramatically lower query cost. Experiments on CIFAR‑10, ArtBench‑10, and MS‑COCO show that TID outperforms existing methods and TIDE attributes samples in milliseconds, faster than generation itself.

By Shixuan Liu, Joan Serr\`a, Kin Wai Cheuk, Jinju Kim, Woosung Choi, Yukara Ikemiya, Wei-Hsiang Liao, Jiaqi W. Ma, Yuki Mitsufuji
arXiv Machine Learning
Jun 9

Evaluating the Representation Space of Diffusion Models via Self-Supervised Principles

arXiv:2606. 09718v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Diffusion models have demonstrated remarkable generative capabilities and have also emerged as powerful self-supervised representation learners, yet the connection between these two abilities remains less explored.

By Xiao Li, Yixuan Jia, Zekai Zhang, Xiang Li, Lianghe Shi, Jinxin Zhou, Zhihui Zhu, Liyue Shen, Qing Qu
arXiv AI
6d ago

Does Uniform Discrete Diffusion Need Time?

Uniform discrete diffusion models (UDMs) typically rely on explicit time conditioning, yet this study finds that such conditioning is often unnecessary in practice. While the population‑optimal UDM predictor generally depends on time—controlling how much the model should trust the observed context—the dependence becomes negligible in finite‑data language settings. Empirical results show that trained language UDMs exhibit limited time sensitivity across most of the diffusion trajectory, and time‑agnostic predictors can match or outperform time‑conditioned models on various datasets and training objectives.

By Chunsan Hong, Chieh-Hsin Lai, Satoshi Hayakawa, Yuhta Takida, Jong Chul Ye, Yuki Mitsufuji
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 11

Smoothing the Score Function to Enhance Generalization in Diffusion Models

The paper investigates memorization in diffusion models, showing that the empirical score function is a weighted sum of Gaussian score functions with sharp softmax weights, causing individual training samples to dominate and lead to sampling collapse. By approximating this function with a neural network, the authors obtain a smoother representation that generalizes better. They introduce two techniques—Noise Unconditioning and Temperature Smoothing—to further reduce single‑sample dominance, and demonstrate improved generalization across multiple datasets while preserving generation quality.

By Xinyu Zhou, Jiawei Zhang, Stephen J. Wright
arXiv AI
Sep 3

Language Diffusion Models are Associative Memories Capable of Retrieving Unseen Data

The paper investigates when language diffusion models, specifically Uniform-based Discrete Diffusion Models (UDDMs), shift from memorizing training data to generalizing to new data. It shows that UDDMs act as associative memories, forming basins of attraction around stored examples without requiring an explicit energy function. By measuring token recovery and conditional entropy, the authors identify a sharp transition governed by training set size, where memorization (vanishing entropy) gives way to generalization (finite entropy).

By Bao Pham, Mohammed J. Zaki, Luca Ambrogioni, Dmitry Krotov, Matteo Negri
arXiv AI
Sep 10

Let It Go or Learn to Self-Correct: Continuous Diffusion for Constrained Discrete Tasks

The paper examines how Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models (DDPMs) perform on globally constrained discrete tasks such as Sudoku and N-queens. It shows that standard diffusion sampling, which keeps updates close to the noisy state, often preserves early mistakes, whereas sampling directly from the model’s clean predictions dramatically improves validity (e.g., Sudoku from 31% to 95%). The authors further introduce self‑correction training, exposing the model to its own predictions to reduce inference errors, which enhances the performance of standard samplers across tasks.

By Mariia Drozdova, St\'ephane Liem Nguyen, Fran\c{c}ois Fleuret