pith. sign in

arxiv: 2605.22050 · v2 · pith:7QV34EWNnew · submitted 2026-05-21 · 💻 cs.CV

Broken Memories: Detecting and Mitigating Memorization in Diffusion Models with Degraded Generations

Pith reviewed 2026-05-25 06:05 UTC · model grok-4.3

classification 💻 cs.CV
keywords memorization detectiondiffusion modelsnumerical stabilityimage generationprivacy protectionmitigation techniquesStable Diffusionlatent space analysis
0
0 comments X

The pith

Diffusion models detect memorization through numerical instability shown as broken artifacts during generation.

A machine-rendered reading of the paper's core claim, the machinery that carries it, and where it could break.

The paper establishes that memorization in diffusion models leads to internal numerical instability, which often appears as visually broken artifacts in generated images. Using ideas from stability analysis in numerical methods, it defines empirical stability regions based on the norms of latent updates to identify when generation is becoming unstable. This allows an on-the-fly detection and mitigation system that stops memorization step by step without changing the input prompt or guidance scale. The method keeps the semantic meaning and visual quality of the images while reducing privacy risks from copied training data. Experiments show near-perfect detection and complete removal of memorization with almost no extra computation time.

Core claim

Memorization induces internal numerical instability often manifesting as visually broken artifacts. Inspired by stability analysis in numerical methods, empirical stability regions based on latent update norms quantitatively characterize stable behavior during generation. This supports a principled on-the-fly framework for step-wise detection and adaptive mitigation that suppresses memorization without altering prompts or guidance, preserving semantic fidelity and image quality.

What carries the argument

Empirical stability regions based on latent update norms that detect instability caused by memorization during the denoising steps.

If this is right

  • Stable Diffusion 1.4 achieves AUC greater than 0.999 for detecting memorized generations.
  • Mitigation brings the memorization rate down to 0.0 percent after application.
  • The process adds only about 0.01 seconds per image in overhead.
  • Image quality and adherence to the prompt remain unchanged by the mitigation.
  • The detection and mitigation happen during generation without any model retraining.

Where Pith is reading between the lines

These are editorial extensions of the paper, not claims the author makes directly.

  • Similar instability checks could apply to other iterative generative processes like those in video or audio models.
  • Deployed systems might use this to log and filter outputs that show signs of memorization in real time.
  • Future work could explore whether adjusting the stability thresholds improves performance across different datasets.
  • This approach suggests that monitoring internal dynamics can reveal overfitting without needing access to the training set.

Load-bearing premise

Memorization in the model causes measurable numerical instability during generation that reliably produces broken visual artifacts detectable by latent update norms.

What would settle it

Observe a set of images that are clearly memorized from the training data but generated without broken artifacts or exceeding the stability thresholds, or find that applying the mitigation still produces some memorized outputs.

Figures

Figures reproduced from arXiv: 2605.22050 by Chen Chen, Feifei Li, Geng Hong, Min Yang, Mi Zhang, Xiaoyu You, Yuanmin Huang.

Figure 1
Figure 1. Figure 1: Memorized generations (blue and orange borders, [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p002_1.png] view at source ↗
Figure 2
Figure 2. Figure 2: Left: On-the-fly detection and mitigation progress. Each row visualizes predicted [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p004_2.png] view at source ↗
Figure 3
Figure 3. Figure 3: Comparison of mitigations on SD 1.4 [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p007_3.png] view at source ↗
Figure 4
Figure 4. Figure 4: Qualitative results comparing the proposed approach with the baselines on SD 1.4. [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p008_4.png] view at source ↗
Figure 6
Figure 6. Figure 6: Comparison of latent update trajectories and gen [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p009_6.png] view at source ↗
Figure 7
Figure 7. Figure 7: PNDM generation process on SD 1.4 using strong/mild/non- memorized prompts. [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p014_7.png] view at source ↗
Figure 8
Figure 8. Figure 8: DDIM generation process on SD 1.4 using strong/mild/non- memorized prompts. [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p014_8.png] view at source ↗
Figure 9
Figure 9. Figure 9: Similar stability regions by prompts from different [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p015_9.png] view at source ↗
Figure 10
Figure 10. Figure 10: Similar stability regions by different numbers of [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p016_10.png] view at source ↗
Figure 11
Figure 11. Figure 11: Detection AUC using different numbers of refer [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p017_11.png] view at source ↗
Figure 13
Figure 13. Figure 13: Comparison of latent update trajectories and gen [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p017_13.png] view at source ↗
Figure 14
Figure 14. Figure 14: Comparison with baselines on memorized prompts using finetuned SD 1.4 [PITH_FULL_IMAGE:figures/full_fig_p019_14.png] view at source ↗
read the original abstract

While diffusion models excel at generating high-quality images, their tendency to memorize training data poses significant privacy and copyright risks. In this work, we for the first time identify that memorization induces internal numerical instability, often manifesting as visually ``broken'' artifacts. Inspired by stability analysis in numerical methods, we introduce empirical stability regions based on latent update norms to quantitatively characterize stable behavior during generation. Leveraging this, we propose a principled, on-the-fly framework for step-wise detection and adaptive mitigation. Our approach suppresses memorization without altering prompts or guidance, thereby preserving semantic fidelity and image quality. Extensive experiments on Stable Diffusion 1.4 demonstrate that our method achieves an AUC $>0.999$ detection performance and a $0.0\%$ memorization rate after mitigation with negligible overhead ($\approx0.01$s per image).

Editorial analysis

A structured set of objections, weighed in public.

Desk editor's note, referee report, simulated authors' rebuttal, and a circularity audit. Tearing a paper down is the easy half of reading it; the pith above is the substance, this is the friction.

Referee Report

0 major / 4 minor

Summary. The paper claims that memorization in diffusion models induces internal numerical instability, often visible as 'broken' artifacts during generation. It introduces empirical stability regions based on latent update norms to characterize stable behavior, and proposes an on-the-fly step-wise detection and adaptive mitigation framework that suppresses memorization without altering prompts or guidance. Experiments on Stable Diffusion 1.4 report AUC >0.999 for detection, 0.0% post-mitigation memorization rate, and negligible overhead of ≈0.01s per image while preserving semantic fidelity and image quality.

Significance. If the reported empirical correlation between memorization and elevated latent update norms holds under broader validation, the work offers a practical, prompt-preserving approach to mitigating privacy and copyright risks in diffusion models. The on-the-fly nature, high detection AUC, zero post-mitigation memorization rate, and low overhead are strengths that could aid ethical deployment of generative models.

minor comments (4)
  1. The experimental section should explicitly state the dataset(s) used for training the base model and for evaluating memorization (including number of prompts and images), as these details are needed to interpret the AUC >0.999 and 0.0% rates.
  2. Clarify the precise definition and threshold used to label a generation as 'memorized' (e.g., exact pixel match, perceptual similarity, or membership inference), since this metric is central to the mitigation claims.
  3. Figure captions or the method section should include an example of a 'broken' artifact alongside the corresponding latent update norm trace to illustrate the stability-region concept.
  4. The overhead measurement (≈0.01s per image) should specify the hardware and implementation details for reproducibility.

Simulated Author's Rebuttal

0 responses · 0 unresolved

We thank the referee for the positive summary, significance assessment, and recommendation of minor revision. No specific major comments were provided in the report.

Circularity Check

0 steps flagged

No significant circularity detected

full rationale

The paper presents an empirical framework that correlates memorization with elevated latent update norms during diffusion generation, using stability-region analysis for detection and mitigation on Stable Diffusion 1.4. No equations, fitted parameters renamed as predictions, or self-citation chains are shown that reduce the core claims (AUC >0.999 detection, 0% post-mitigation memorization) to inputs by construction. The stability regions are introduced as an empirical characterization inspired by numerical methods, without self-definitional loops, uniqueness theorems from the authors, or ansatzes smuggled via prior self-citations. The derivation remains self-contained against external benchmarks.

Axiom & Free-Parameter Ledger

0 free parameters · 0 axioms · 0 invented entities

Only the abstract is available; no free parameters, axioms, or invented entities can be extracted or audited.

pith-pipeline@v0.9.0 · 5683 in / 1017 out tokens · 25684 ms · 2026-05-25T06:05:58.746347+00:00 · methodology

discussion (0)

Sign in with ORCID, Apple, or X to comment. Anyone can read and Pith papers without signing in.

Lean theorems connected to this paper

Citations machine-checked in the Pith Canon. Every link opens the source theorem in the public Lean library.

What do these tags mean?
matches
The paper's claim is directly supported by a theorem in the formal canon.
supports
The theorem supports part of the paper's argument, but the paper may add assumptions or extra steps.
extends
The paper goes beyond the formal theorem; the theorem is a base layer rather than the whole result.
uses
The paper appears to rely on the theorem as machinery.
contradicts
The paper's claim conflicts with a theorem or certificate in the canon.
unclear
Pith found a possible connection, but the passage is too broad, indirect, or ambiguous to say the theorem truly supports the claim.

Reference graph

Works this paper leans on

36 extracted references · 36 canonical work pages · 9 internal anchors

  1. [1]

    Josh Achiam, Steven Adler, Sandhini Agarwal, Lama Ahmad, Ilge Akkaya, Floren- cia Leoni Aleman, Diogo Almeida, Janko Altenschmidt, Sam Altman, Shyamal Anadkat, et al. 2023. Gpt-4 technical report.arXiv preprint arXiv:2303.08774 (2023)

  2. [3]

    Tony Bonnaire, Raphaël Urfin, Giulio Biroli, and Marc Mézard. 2025. Why Diffusion Models Don’t Memorize: The Role of Implicit Dynamical Regularization in Training. arXiv:2505.17638 [cs.LG] https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.17638

  3. [4]

    Jonathan Brokman, Itay Gershon, Omer Hofman, Guy Gilboa, and Roman Vain- shtein. 2025. Tracking memorization geometry throughout the diffusion model generative process. InNeurIPS 2025 Workshop on Symmetry and Geometry in Neural Representations

  4. [5]

    J.C. Butcher. 1996. A history of Runge-Kutta methods.Applied Numerical Mathe- matics20, 3 (1996), 247–260. doi:10.1016/0168-9274(95)00108-5

  5. [6]

    Nicolas Carlini, Jamie Hayes, Milad Nasr, Matthew Jagielski, Vikash Sehwag, Florian Tramer, Borja Balle, Daphne Ippolito, and Eric Wallace. 2023. Extracting training data from diffusion models. In32nd USENIX security symposium (USENIX Security 23). 5253–5270

  6. [7]

    Ruchika Chavhan, Ondrej Bohdal, Yongshuo Zong, Da Li, and Timothy Hospedales. 2024. Memorized Images in Diffusion Models share a Subspace that can be Located and Deleted. arXiv:2406.18566 [cs.CV] https://arxiv.org/abs/ 2406.18566 KDD 2026, August 9–13, 2026, Jeju Island, Republic of Korea. Yuanmin Huang, Mi Zhang, Chen Chen, Feifei Li, Geng Hong, Xiaoyu Y...

  7. [8]

    Chen Chen, Daochang Liu, Mubarak Shah, and Chang Xu. 2025. En- hancing Privacy-Utility Trade-offs to Mitigate Memorization in Diffu- sion Models. InProceedings of the IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition. 8182–8191. https://openaccess.thecvf. com/content/CVPR2025/html/Chen_Enhancing_Privacy-Utility_Trade- offs_to_Mitigate_Memoriz...

  8. [9]

    Chen Chen, Daochang Liu, Mubarak Shah, and Chang Xu. 2025. Explor- ing Local Memorization in Diffusion Models via Bright Ending Attention. arXiv:2410.21665 [cs.CV] https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.21665

  9. [10]

    Chen Chen, Daochang Liu, and Chang Xu. 2024. Towards memorization-free diffusion models. InProceedings of the IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition. 8425–8434

  10. [11]

    Dale R Durran. 1991. The third-order Adams-Bashforth method: An attractive alternative to leapfrog time differencing.Monthly weather review119, 3 (1991), 702–720

  11. [12]

    Zihan Guan, Mengxuan Hu, Sheng Li, and Anil Vullikanti. 2025. UFID: A Unified Framework for Input-level Backdoor Detection on Diffusion Models. arXiv:2404.01101 [cs.CR] https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.01101

  12. [13]

    1993.Solving ordinary differential equations I: Nonstiff problems

    Ernst Hairer, Gerhard Wanner, and Syvert P Nørsett. 1993.Solving ordinary differential equations I: Nonstiff problems. Springer

  13. [14]

    Jack Hessel, Ari Holtzman, Maxwell Forbes, Ronan Le Bras, and Yejin Choi

  14. [15]

    CLIPScore: A Reference-free Evaluation Metric for Image Captioning

    CLIPScore: A Reference-free Evaluation Metric for Image Captioning. arXiv:2104.08718 [cs.CV] https://arxiv.org/abs/2104.08718

  15. [16]

    Martin Heusel, Hubert Ramsauer, Thomas Unterthiner, Bernhard Nessler, and Sepp Hochreiter. 2018. GANs Trained by a Two Time-Scale Update Rule Converge to a Local Nash Equilibrium. arXiv:1706.08500 [cs.LG] https://arxiv.org/abs/1706. 08500

  16. [17]

    Jonathan Ho, Ajay Jain, and Pieter Abbeel. 2020. Denoising diffusion probabilistic models.Advances in neural information processing systems33 (2020), 6840–6851

  17. [18]

    Jonathan Ho and Tim Salimans. 2022. Classifier-Free Diffusion Guidance. arXiv:2207.12598 [cs.LG] https://arxiv.org/abs/2207.12598

  18. [19]

    Anubhav Jain, Yuya Kobayashi, Takashi Shibuya, Yuhta Takida, Nasir Memon, Julian Togelius, and Yuki Mitsufuji. 2025. Classifier-free guidance inside the attraction basin may cause memorization. InProceedings of the Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition Conference. 12871–12879

  19. [20]

    Dongjae Jeon, Dueun Kim, and Albert No. 2025. Understanding and Mitigating Memorization in Generative Models via Sharpness of Probability Landscapes. Proceedings of the 42nd International Conference on Machine Learning(2025)

  20. [21]

    Yue Jiang, Haokun Lin, Yang Bai, Bo Peng, Zhili Liu, Yueming Lyu, Yong Yang, Xing Zheng, and Jing Dong. 2025. Image-Level Memorization Detection Via Inversion-Based Inference Perturbation.The Thirteenth International Conference on Learning Representations(2025)

  21. [22]

    Kingma and Max Welling

    Diederik P. Kingma and Max Welling. 2019. An Introduction to Variational Autoencoders.Foundations and Trends®in Machine Learning12, 4 (2019), 307–392. doi:10.1561/2200000056

  22. [23]

    Luping Liu, Yi Ren, Zhijie Lin, and Zhou Zhao. 2022. Pseudo Numerical Methods for Diffusion Models on Manifolds. arXiv:2202.09778 [cs.CV] https://arxiv.org/ abs/2202.09778

  23. [24]

    Zihao Luo, Xilie Xu, Feng Liu, Yun Sing Koh, Di Wang, and Jingfeng Zhang. 2024. Privacy-Preserving Low-Rank Adaptation against Membership Inference Attacks for Latent Diffusion Models. arXiv:2402.11989 [cs.LG] https://arxiv.org/abs/2402. 11989

  24. [25]

    Ed Pizzi, Sreya Dutta Roy, Sugosh Nagavara Ravindra, Priya Goyal, and Matthijs Douze. 2022. A self-supervised descriptor for image copy detection. InProceedings of the IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition. 14532– 14542

  25. [26]

    Alec Radford, Jong Wook Kim, Chris Hallacy, Aditya Ramesh, Gabriel Goh, Sandhini Agarwal, Girish Sastry, Amanda Askell, Pamela Mishkin, Jack Clark, Gretchen Krueger, and Ilya Sutskever. 2021. Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervision. arXiv:2103.00020 [cs.CV] https://arxiv.org/ abs/2103.00020

  26. [27]

    Jie Ren, Yaxin Li, Shenglai Zeng, Han Xu, Lingjuan Lyu, Yue Xing, and Jiliang Tang. 2024. Unveiling and mitigating memorization in text-to-image diffusion models through cross attention. InEuropean Conference on Computer Vision. Springer, 340–356

  27. [28]

    Robin Rombach, Andreas Blattmann, Dominik Lorenz, Patrick Esser, and Björn Ommer. 2022. High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models. arXiv:2112.10752 [cs.CV] https://arxiv.org/abs/2112.10752

  28. [29]

    Christoph Schuhmann, Romain Beaumont, Richard Vencu, Cade Gordon, Ross Wightman, Mehdi Cherti, Theo Coombes, Aarush Katta, Clayton Mullis, Mitchell Wortsman, et al. 2022. Laion-5b: An open large-scale dataset for training next generation image-text models.Advances in neural information processing systems 35 (2022), 25278–25294

  29. [30]

    Christoph Schuhmann, Richard Vencu, Romain Beaumont, Robert Kaczmarczyk, Clayton Mullis, Aarush Katta, Theo Coombes, Jenia Jitsev, and Aran Komatsuzaki

  30. [31]

    Laion-400m: Open dataset of clip-filtered 400 million image-text pairs.arXiv preprint arXiv:2111.02114(2021)

  31. [32]

    1985.Numerical solution of partial differential equations: finite difference methods

    Gordon D Smith. 1985.Numerical solution of partial differential equations: finite difference methods. Oxford university press

  32. [33]

    Gowthami Somepalli, Vasu Singla, Micah Goldblum, Jonas Geiping, and Tom Goldstein. 2023. Understanding and mitigating copying in diffusion models. Advances in Neural Information Processing Systems36 (2023), 47783–47803

  33. [34]

    Jiaming Song, Chenlin Meng, and Stefano Ermon. 2022. Denoising Diffusion Implicit Models. arXiv:2010.02502 [cs.LG] https://arxiv.org/abs/2010.02502

  34. [35]

    Yang Song, Jascha Sohl-Dickstein, Diederik P Kingma, Abhishek Kumar, Stefano Ermon, and Ben Poole. 2020. Score-based generative modeling through stochastic differential equations.arXiv preprint arXiv:2011.13456(2020)

  35. [36]

    Ryan Webster. 2023. A reproducible extraction of training images from diffusion models.arXiv preprint arXiv:2305.08694(2023)

  36. [37]

    transfer part

    Yuxin Wen, Yuchen Liu, Chen Chen, and Lingjuan Lyu. 2024. Detecting, explain- ing, and mitigating memorization in diffusion models. InThe Twelfth International Conference on Learning Representations. A Detailed Proofs In this section, we provide detailed proofs for Theorem 1 and 3 presented in the main text. Theorem 1 (Normal Trajectories Stability).Let 𝛿...