arXiv AI

Mitigating Memorization In Language Models

The paper explores ways to reduce the memorization of training data in language models, testing three regularizer-based, three finetuning-based, and eleven machine unlearning methods—five of which are newly introduced. It introduces TinyMem, a lightweight suite of small models for rapid testing of these mitigation techniques, and shows that unlearning methods, particularly BalancedSubnet, outperform others in removing memorized content while maintaining task performance. The study also finds that regularizer-based approaches are slow and ineffective, while finetuning methods are costly, especially when high accuracy is required.

arXiv AI

Sep 11

Forgetting Only What Matters: Layer-Selective Unlearning toward Robust LLMs

The paper introduces Forgetting Only What Matters via Unlearning Layers (FOM-UL), a layer‑selective unlearning framework for large language models. FOM-UL uses a forget‑to‑retain significance score to identify transformer layers that strongly influence the forget set while being insensitive to the retain set, allowing targeted updates that preserve most of the model. Experiments on TOFU, KnowUnDo, and MUSE-style benchmarks show that FOM-UL reduces residual memorization and maintains utility better than several baselines, even after 8‑bit and 4‑bit post‑training quantization, and it also limits recovery of forgotten content in adversarial prompt tests.

By Ravi Ranjan, Olivera Kotevska, Agoritsa Polyzou

llms efficiency safety

Hugging Face Trending Papers

Sep 9

Forgetting Only What Matters: Layer-Selective Unlearning toward Robust LLMs

Large Language Models (LLMs) can memorize and reproduce sensitive, copyrighted, or otherwise undesirable training content, creating privacy, safety, and regulatory concerns. Machine unlearning offers...

llms efficiency safety

arXiv Machine Learning

4d ago

UnlearningSoup: Is Repeated Tuning Necessary for Large Language Model Unlearning?

arXiv:2609.37076v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Large language models trained on vast corpora inherently risk memorizing harmful content that may later re-emerge in their outputs. To mitigate this is...

By Puning Yang, Qizhou Wang, Junchi Yu, Bo Han, Xiuying Chen

llms

arXiv Machine Learning

Jun 5

SHRED: Retain-Set-Free Unlearning via Self-Distillation with Logit Demotion

arXiv:2605. 07482v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Machine unlearning for large language models (LLMs) aims to selectively remove memorized content such as private data, copyrighted text, or hazardous knowledge, without costly full retraining.

By Zizhao Hu, Ameya Godbole, Johnny Tian-Zheng Wei, Mohammad Rostami, Jesse Thomason, Robin Jia

llms efficiency benchmarks

arXiv Machine Learning

Jul 13

Forget Narrowly, Retain Broadly: Unlearning as an Asymmetric Generalization Problem

arXiv:2607. 09236v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Machine unlearning in LLMs is the targeted removal of specific knowledge while preserving all other capabilities, critical for privacy and safety.

By Amit Peleg, Naman Deep Singh, Naama Pearl, Bibhabasu Mohapatra, Matthias Hein

llms benchmarks safety

arXiv Machine Learning

Sep 23

Towards Mitigating Excessive Forgetting in LLM Unlearning via Entanglement-Guidance with Proxy Constraint

arXiv:2508.20443v3 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Large language models (LLMs) are trained on massive datasets that may include private or copyrighted content. Due to growing privacy and ownership...

By Zhihao Liu, Jian Lou, Yuke Hu, Xiaochen Li, Yitian Chen, Tailun Chen, Zhizhen Qin, Kui Ren, Zhan Qin

llms benchmarks safety

arXiv Machine Learning

Jul 15

Inference-Time Machine Unlearning via Gated Activation Redirection

arXiv:2605. 12765v3 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Large Language Models memorize vast amounts of training data, raising concerns regarding privacy, copyright infringement, and safety.

By Vin\'icius Conte Turani, Ot\'avio Parraga, Jo\~ao Vitor Boer Abitante, Kristen K. Arguello, Joana Pasquali, Ramiro N. Barros, Flavio du Pin Calmon, Christian Mattjie, Rodrigo C. Barros, Lucas S. Kupssinsk\"u

llms efficiency safety

arXiv Machine Learning

Jun 5

Learning What to Forget: Improving LLM Unlearning via Learned Token-Level Importance

arXiv:2606. 06320v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Machine unlearning aims to remove targeted knowledge from a trained model while preserving its general capabilities.

By Gizem Y\"uce, Giorgos Nikolaou, Nicolas Flammarion

llms

arXiv AI

Jun 6

LLMs Can Leak Training Data But Do They Want To? A Propensity-Aware Evaluation of Memorization in LLMs

arXiv:2606. 06286v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Large language models can reproduce training data, but existing memorization evaluations mostly measure whether models can be forced to do so, rather than whether they do so under ordinary use.

By Gianluca Barmina, Peter Schneider-Kamp, Lukas Galke Poech

llms safety

arXiv Machine Learning

Aug 6

Unforgettable Generalization in Language Models

arXiv:2409. 02228v2 Announce Type: replace Abstract: When language models (LMs) are trained to forget (or "unlearn'') a skill, how precisely does their behavior change?

By Eric Zhang, Leshem Choshen, Jacob Andreas

llms nlp fine-tuning

arXiv Computation and Language

Aug 25

CALIBURN: Self-Calibrated LLM Unlearning Alignment

CALIBURN is a new approach to large language model (LLM) unlearning that measures a model’s confidence in undesirable knowledge and uses this measure to fine‑tune unlearning gradient updates. By doing so, it offers more precise control over what is forgotten while better preserving the model’s overall utility. Experiments on benchmarks such as MUSE and WMDP show that CALIBURN outperforms existing methods in balancing knowledge removal with utility retention.

By Zhengbang Yang, Yisheng Zhong, Junyuan Hong, Zhuangdi Zhu

llms benchmarks safety

arXiv Computation and Language

Sep 1

MemDefrag: Latent Memory Defragmentation for Large Language Models

arXiv:2607.05969v3 Announce Type: replace Abstract: Latent memory, which stores past knowledge fragments as per-layer hidden states, has emerged as a promising paradigm (e.g., MemoryLLM and M+) for l...

By Ruiyi Yan, Zhuoyuan Mao, Yiwen Guo

llms benchmarks

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