Continual Learning with Guarantees via Weight Interval Constraints

Abstract

We introduce a new training paradigm that enforces interval constraints on neural network parameter space to control forgetting. Contemporary Continual Learning (CL) methods focus on training neural networks efficiently from a stream of data, while reducing the negative impact of catastrophic forgetting, yet they do not provide any firm guarantees that network performance will not deteriorate uncontrollably over time. In this work, we show how to put bounds on forgetting by reformulating continual learning of a model as a continual contraction of its parameter space. To that end, we propose Hyperrectangle Training, a new training methodology where each task is represented by a hyperrectangle in the parameter space, fully contained in the hyperrectangles of the previous tasks. This formulation reduces the NP-hard CL problem back to polynomial time while providing full resilience against forgetting. We validate our claim by developing InterContiNet (Interval Continual Learning) algorithm which leverages interval arithmetic to effectively model parameter regions as hyperrectangles. Through experimental results, we show that our approach performs well in a continual learning setup without storing data from previous tasks.