English

Controllable Machine Unlearning via Gradient Pivoting

Machine Learning 2025-10-23 v1 Optimization and Control

Abstract

Machine unlearning (MU) aims to remove the influence of specific data from a trained model. However, approximate unlearning methods, often formulated as a single-objective optimization (SOO) problem, face a critical trade-off between unlearning efficacy and model fidelity. This leads to three primary challenges: the risk of over-forgetting, a lack of fine-grained control over the unlearning process, and the absence of metrics to holistically evaluate the trade-off. To address these issues, we reframe MU as a multi-objective optimization (MOO) problem. We then introduce a novel algorithm, Controllable Unlearning by Pivoting Gradient (CUP), which features a unique pivoting mechanism. Unlike traditional MOO methods that converge to a single solution, CUP's mechanism is designed to controllably navigate the entire Pareto frontier. This navigation is governed by a single intuitive hyperparameter, the `unlearning intensity', which allows for precise selection of a desired trade-off. To evaluate this capability, we adopt the hypervolume indicator, a metric that captures both the quality and diversity of the entire set of solutions an algorithm can generate. Our experimental results demonstrate that CUP produces a superior set of Pareto-optimal solutions, consistently outperforming existing methods across various vision tasks.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2510.19226,
  title  = {Controllable Machine Unlearning via Gradient Pivoting},
  author = {Youngsik Hwang and Dong-Young Lim},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.19226},
  year   = {2025}
}
R2 v1 2026-07-01T06:59:02.690Z