Sculpting Memory: Multi-Concept Forgetting in Diffusion Models via Dynamic Mask and Concept-Aware Optimization

Abstract

Text-to-image (T2I) diffusion models have achieved remarkable success in generating high-quality images from textual prompts. However, their ability to store vast amounts of knowledge raises concerns in scenarios where selective forgetting is necessary, such as removing copyrighted content, reducing biases, or eliminating harmful concepts. While existing unlearning methods can remove certain concepts, they struggle with multi-concept forgetting due to instability, residual knowledge persistence, and generation quality degradation. To address these challenges, we propose \textbf{Dynamic Mask coupled with Concept-Aware Loss}, a novel unlearning framework designed for multi-concept forgetting in diffusion models. Our \textbf{Dynamic Mask} mechanism adaptively updates gradient masks based on current optimization states, allowing selective weight modifications that prevent interference with unrelated knowledge. Additionally, our \textbf{Concept-Aware Loss} explicitly guides the unlearning process by enforcing semantic consistency through superclass alignment, while a regularization loss based on knowledge distillation ensures that previously unlearned concepts remain forgotten during sequential unlearning. We conduct extensive experiments to evaluate our approach. Results demonstrate that our method outperforms existing unlearning techniques in forgetting effectiveness, output fidelity, and semantic coherence, particularly in multi-concept scenarios. Our work provides a principled and flexible framework for stable and high-fidelity unlearning in generative models. The code will be released publicly.