---
OA_place: repository
OA_type: green
_id: '22294'
abstract:
- lang: eng
  text: 'Modern computer systems store vast amounts of personal data, enabling advances
    in AI and ML but risking user privacy and trust. For privacy reasons, it is sometimes
    desired for an ML model to forget part of the data it was trained on. In this
    paper, we introduce a novel unlearning approach based on Forgetting Neural Networks
    (FNNs), a neuroscience-inspired architecture that explicitly encodes forgetting
    through multiplicative decay factors. While FNNs had previously been studied as
    a theoretical construct, we provide the first concrete implementation and demonstrate
    their effectiveness for targeted unlearning. We propose several variants with
    per-neuron forgetting factors, including rank-based assignments guided by activation
    levels, and evaluate them on MNIST and Fashion-MNIST benchmarks. Our method systematically
    removes information associated with forget sets while preserving performance on
    retained data. Membership inference attacks confirm the effectiveness of FNN-based
    unlearning in erasing information about the training data from the neural network.
    These results establish FNNs as a promising foundation for efficient and interpretable
    unlearning. '
article_processing_charge: No
arxiv: 1
author:
- first_name: Amartya
  full_name: Hatua, Amartya
  last_name: Hatua
- first_name: Trung
  full_name: Nguyen, Trung
  last_name: Nguyen
- first_name: Filip
  full_name: Cano Cordoba, Filip
  id: 708cad98-e86a-11ef-8098-bdae2d7c6af1
  last_name: Cano Cordoba
  orcid: 0000-0002-0783-904X
- first_name: Andrew
  full_name: Sung, Andrew
  last_name: Sung
citation:
  ama: 'Hatua A, Nguyen T, Cano Cordoba F, Sung A. Machine unlearning using forgetting
    neural networks. In: <i>Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Agents
    and Artificial Intelligence</i>. Vol 2. SciTePress; 2026:1536-1546. doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.5220/0014326500004052">10.5220/0014326500004052</a>'
  apa: 'Hatua, A., Nguyen, T., Cano Cordoba, F., &#38; Sung, A. (2026). Machine unlearning
    using forgetting neural networks. In <i>Proceedings of the 18th International
    Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence</i> (Vol. 2, pp. 1536–1546).
    Marbella, Spain: SciTePress. <a href="https://doi.org/10.5220/0014326500004052">https://doi.org/10.5220/0014326500004052</a>'
  chicago: Hatua, Amartya, Trung Nguyen, Filip Cano Cordoba, and Andrew Sung. “Machine
    Unlearning Using Forgetting Neural Networks.” In <i>Proceedings of the 18th International
    Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence</i>, 2:1536–46. SciTePress, 2026.
    <a href="https://doi.org/10.5220/0014326500004052">https://doi.org/10.5220/0014326500004052</a>.
  ieee: A. Hatua, T. Nguyen, F. Cano Cordoba, and A. Sung, “Machine unlearning using
    forgetting neural networks,” in <i>Proceedings of the 18th International Conference
    on Agents and Artificial Intelligence</i>, Marbella, Spain, 2026, vol. 2, pp.
    1536–1546.
  ista: 'Hatua A, Nguyen T, Cano Cordoba F, Sung A. 2026. Machine unlearning using
    forgetting neural networks. Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on
    Agents and Artificial Intelligence. ICAART: International Conference on Agents
    and Artificial Intelligence vol. 2, 1536–1546.'
  mla: Hatua, Amartya, et al. “Machine Unlearning Using Forgetting Neural Networks.”
    <i>Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence</i>,
    vol. 2, SciTePress, 2026, pp. 1536–46, doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.5220/0014326500004052">10.5220/0014326500004052</a>.
  short: A. Hatua, T. Nguyen, F. Cano Cordoba, A. Sung, in:, Proceedings of the 18th
    International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence, SciTePress, 2026,
    pp. 1536–1546.
conference:
  end_date: 2026-03-08
  location: Marbella, Spain
  name: 'ICAART: International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence'
  start_date: 2026-03-05
das_tickbox: '1'
date_created: 2026-07-13T09:46:46Z
date_published: 2026-06-30T00:00:00Z
date_updated: 2026-07-16T09:02:53Z
day: '30'
department:
- _id: ToHe
doi: 10.5220/0014326500004052
external_id:
  arxiv:
  - '2410.22374'
intvolume: '         2'
keyword:
- Machine Unlearning
- Neuroscience-Inspired Machine Learning
- Membership Inference Attacks
language:
- iso: eng
main_file_link:
- open_access: '1'
  url: https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2410.22374
month: '06'
oa: 1
oa_version: Preprint
page: 1536-1546
publication: Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Agents and Artificial
  Intelligence
publication_identifier:
  eissn:
  - 2184-433X
  isbn:
  - '9789897587962'
publication_status: published
publisher: SciTePress
quality_controlled: '1'
scopus_import: '1'
status: public
title: Machine unlearning using forgetting neural networks
type: conference
user_id: 2DF688A6-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87
volume: 2
year: '2026'
...