👻 Erasus

Efficient Representative And Surgical Unlearning Selection
Universal Machine Unlearning via Coreset Selection

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🚀 Try it NOW (No Setup Required)

Remove "Harry Potter" from GPT-2 in 5 minutes. No installation needed.

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Why Erasus?

Method	Time	Accuracy Loss	MIA AUC
Full Retrain	24 hours	0%	0.51
Random Deletion	2 hours	-15%	0.73
Erasus (Influence)	30 min	-2%	0.52

90% faster than retraining, ~2% accuracy loss. MIA AUC ≈ 0.5 = certified forgetting.

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Erasus is a research-grade Python framework for Machine Unlearning across all major foundation model types. It surgically removes specific data, concepts, or behaviors from trained models — without the computational cost of full retraining.

It supports Vision-Language Models, Large Language Models, Diffusion Models, Audio Models, and Video Models through a unified API backed by 27 unlearning strategies, 19 coreset selectors, 7 loss functions, and a comprehensive evaluation suite with 15+ metrics.

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🧠 How It Works

Erasus operates in a three-stage pipeline:

┌──────────────────────┐     ┌──────────────────────┐     ┌──────────────────────┐
│  1. CORESET SELECTION │────▶│  2. TARGETED          │────▶│  3. EVALUATION &     │
│                      │     │     UNLEARNING         │     │     CERTIFICATION    │
│  Pick the minimal    │     │                        │     │                      │
│  set of samples that │     │  Apply gradient ascent,│     │  MIA, accuracy,      │
│  define forgetting   │     │  Fisher, SCRUB, LoRA,  │     │  perplexity, FID,    │
│  "support vectors"   │     │  or 16+ other methods  │     │  certified removal   │
└──────────────────────┘     └──────────────────────┘     └──────────────────────┘

Key Innovation: Geometry-aware coreset selection identifies the "support vectors of forgetting" — proving that unlearning k% of the most influential samples approximates unlearning 100% with bounded utility loss.

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⚡ Key Features

Feature	Description
🎯 Coreset-Driven Forgetting	24 coreset selectors (influence functions, CRAIG, herding, k-center, EL2N, TracIn, Data Shapley, Active Learning) reduce compute by up to 90%
🧩 Ensemble Unlearning	Combine strategies sequentially or via weight averaging for robust forgetting
📷📝 Multimodal Decoupling	Unlearn image-text associations without breaking visual or textual generalization
🌐 Federated Unlearning	Decentralized unlearning across clients with FedAvg aggregation and client-side forgetting
🛡️ Utility Preservation	Retain-Anchor loss + Fisher regularization constrain model drift on safe data
🔐 Certified Removal	Formal (ε, δ)-removal verification with PAC-style guarantees
📊 Integrated Evaluation	MIA, confidence, feature distance, perplexity, FID, activation analysis, backdoor detection, 25+ metrics
📈 Visualization Suite	Loss landscapes, embedding plots, gradient flow, interactive Plotly dashboards, HTML reports
🔌 Model Agnostic	Works with any PyTorch model + HuggingFace Transformers (BERT, LLaMA, T5, CLIP, DALL-E)
🖥️ CLI + Python API	erasus unlearn, erasus benchmark, erasus visualize, or full Python API
🧪 Experiment Tracking	Built-in W&B, MLflow, local JSON tracking + HPO with Optuna
📐 Theoretical Bounds	PAC-learning utility bounds, influence bounds, certified unlearning radius

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🏗️ Supported Models

Modality	Models	Unlearner
Vision-Language	CLIP, LLaVA, BLIP-2, Flamingo, VisionTransformer	VLMUnlearner
Language	LLaMA, Mistral, GPT-2/J, BERT, T5	LLMUnlearner
Diffusion	Stable Diffusion 1.x/2.x/XL, DALL-E, Imagen	DiffusionUnlearner
Audio	Whisper, CLAP, Wav2Vec	AudioUnlearner
Video	VideoMAE, VideoCLIP	VideoUnlearner
Federated	Any Architecture	FederatedUnlearner
Any	Auto-detect	MultimodalUnlearner

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📦 Installation

# From PyPI
pip install erasus
pip install erasus[full]   # with diffusers, datasets, wandb, etc.
pip install erasus[hub]    # Hugging Face Hub push/pull

# From source (development)
git clone https://github.com/OnePunchMonk/erasus.git
cd erasus
pip install -e .

# With all optional dependencies
pip install -e ".[full]"

# Hugging Face Hub (push/pull unlearned models)
pip install -e ".[hub]"

# Interactive dashboards (Streamlit / Gradio)
pip install -e ".[dashboard]"

# Development
pip install -e ".[dev]"

Notebooks & dashboards

• Demo (Colab): Remove Harry Potter from GPT-2 — 5 min, zero setup
• Notebooks: notebooks/01_introduction.ipynb, notebooks/02_coreset_analysis.ipynb, examples/notebooks/interactive_demo.ipynb
• Streamlit: streamlit run apps/dashboard_streamlit.py
• Gradio: python apps/dashboard_gradio.py (requires pip install gradio)

Quick Setup Script

bash scripts/setup_env.sh          # CPU
bash scripts/setup_env.sh --gpu    # CUDA 12.1

Docker

docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml up test       # Run tests
docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml run dev        # Dev shell
docker compose -f docker/docker-compose.yml up benchmark   # GPU benchmarks

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🚀 Quick Start

Python API

from erasus.unlearners import ErasusUnlearner

# 1. Load your model
model = ...  # Any PyTorch model

# 2. Create unlearner
unlearner = ErasusUnlearner(
    model=model,
    strategy="gradient_ascent",    # 27 strategies available
    selector="influence",          # 19 selectors available
    device="cuda",
)

# 3. Unlearn
result = unlearner.fit(
    forget_data=forget_loader,     # Data to remove
    retain_data=retain_loader,     # Data to preserve
    prune_ratio=0.1,               # Use top 10% coreset
    epochs=5,
)

# 4. Evaluate
metrics = unlearner.evaluate(
    forget_data=forget_loader,
    retain_data=retain_loader,
)
print(f"MIA AUC: {metrics['mia_auc']:.4f}")  # Should → 0.5

Modality-Specific Unlearners

from erasus.unlearners import VLMUnlearner, LLMUnlearner, DiffusionUnlearner

# CLIP: Remove NSFW concepts
vlm = VLMUnlearner(model=clip_model, strategy="modality_decoupling")
vlm.fit(forget_data=nsfw_loader, retain_data=safe_loader)

# LLaMA: Remove hazardous knowledge
llm = LLMUnlearner(model=llama_model, strategy="gradient_ascent")
llm.fit(forget_data=harmful_loader, retain_data=benign_loader)

# Stable Diffusion: Remove artist styles
diff = DiffusionUnlearner(model=sd_model, strategy="concept_erasure")
diff.fit(forget_data=artist_loader, retain_data=general_loader)

Auto-Detect Model Type

from erasus.unlearners import MultimodalUnlearner

# Automatically picks the right unlearner
unlearner = MultimodalUnlearner.from_model(your_model)

CLI

# Run unlearning
erasus unlearn --config configs/default.yaml

# Evaluate results
erasus evaluate --config configs/default.yaml --checkpoint model.pt

# Run benchmarks
erasus benchmark --strategies gradient_ascent,scrub --selectors random,influence

# Generate visualizations
erasus visualize --type embeddings --method tsne --output embeddings.png
erasus visualize --type comparison --output comparison.png
erasus visualize --type report --output report.html

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🔧 Strategies & Selectors

Unlearning Strategies (30)

Category	Strategies
Gradient Methods	Gradient Ascent, SCRUB (CVPR 2024), Fisher Forgetting, Negative Gradient, Modality Decoupling, Saliency Unlearning
Parameter Methods	LoRA Unlearning, Sparse-Aware, Mask-Based, Neuron Pruning, Layer Freezing
Data Methods	Amnesiac ML, SISA, Certified Removal, Knowledge Distillation
LLM-Specific	SSD (NeurIPS 2024), Token Masking, Embedding Alignment, Causal Tracing, Attention Surgery
Diffusion-Specific	Concept Erasure (ICCV 2023), Noise Injection, U-Net Surgery, Timestep Masking, Safe Latents
VLM-Specific	Contrastive Unlearning, Cross-Modal Decoupling, Attention Unlearning, Vision-Text Split
Ensemble	Sequential / Averaged multi-strategy combination

Coreset Selectors (24)

Category	Selectors
Gradient-Based	Influence Functions, TracIn, Gradient Norm, GradMatch/CRAIG, EL2N, Representer, Forgetting Score
Geometry-Based	k-Center, Herding, GLISTER, Submodular, k-Means++, Farthest First
Learning-Based	Forgetting Events, Data Shapley, Valuation Network, Active Learning, Loss Accumulation
Ensemble	Voting Selector, Auto-Selector, Weighted Fusion

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📊 Evaluation & Metrics

from erasus.metrics import MetricSuite

suite = MetricSuite(["accuracy", "mia", "perplexity"])
results = suite.run(model, forget_loader, retain_loader)

Category	Metrics
Forgetting	MIA (+ LiRA, LOSS variants), Confidence, Feature Distance, Activation Analysis, Backdoor ASR, Extraction Attack
Utility	Accuracy, Perplexity, Retrieval (R@1/5/10), FID, BLEU, ROUGE, CLIP Score, Inception Score
Efficiency	Time Complexity, Memory Usage, Speedup Ratio, FLOPs Estimation
Privacy	Differential Privacy (ε, δ), Privacy Audit

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📈 Visualization

from erasus.visualization import (
    EmbeddingVisualizer,
    LossLandscapeVisualizer,
    GradientVisualizer,
    ReportGenerator,
)
from erasus.visualization.attention import AttentionVisualizer
from erasus.visualization.comparisons import ComparisonVisualizer

# t-SNE / PCA embeddings
viz = EmbeddingVisualizer(model)
viz.plot(data_loader, method="tsne")

# Loss landscape
landscape = LossLandscapeVisualizer(model)
landscape.plot_2d_contour(data_loader)

# Attention heatmaps (before vs. after)
attn_viz = AttentionVisualizer(model_after)
attn_viz.plot_attention_comparison(inputs, model_before)

# Before/after comparisons
comp = ComparisonVisualizer()
comp.plot_prediction_shift(model_before, model_after, forget_loader)
comp.plot_metric_comparison(metrics_before, metrics_after)

# HTML report
report = ReportGenerator("Unlearning Report")
report.add_metrics(metrics)
report.save("report.html")

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🔐 Certification & Privacy

from erasus.certification import CertifiedRemovalVerifier, UnlearningVerifier

# Formal (ε, δ)-removal verification
verifier = CertifiedRemovalVerifier(epsilon=1.0, delta=1e-5)
result = verifier.verify(unlearned_model, retrained_model, n_total=10000, n_forget=500)
print(f"Certified: {result['certified']}")

# Statistical verification
stat_verifier = UnlearningVerifier(significance=0.05)
tests = stat_verifier.verify_all(model, forget_loader, retain_loader)

Theoretical Bounds

from erasus.certification.bounds import TheoreticalBounds

# PAC-learning utility bound
bounds = TheoreticalBounds.pac_utility_bound(
    n_total=50000, n_forget=500, n_retain=49500, delta=0.05, model=model,
)
print(f"Utility drop bound: {bounds['pac_utility_drop_bound']:.4f}")

# Certified unlearning radius
radius = TheoreticalBounds.unlearning_radius(
    epsilon=1.0, delta=1e-5, n_forget=500,
)
print(f"Certified radius: {radius['certified_radius']:.4f}")

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📉 Loss Functions

Loss	Description
Retain Anchor	Cross-entropy on retain data to preserve utility
Contrastive	CLIP-style contrastive loss for VLM alignment
KL Divergence	Distribution matching between models
MMD	Maximum Mean Discrepancy for distribution comparison
Fisher Regularization	Fisher information-weighted parameter penalty
Adversarial	GAN-style loss for indistinguishable forget/retain outputs
Triplet	Push forget embeddings away from retain-set anchors
L2 Regularization	Simple weight-drift penalty

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🧪 Experiment Tracking

from erasus.experiments import ExperimentTracker, HyperparameterSearch, AblationStudy

# Supports: "local", "wandb", "mlflow"
with ExperimentTracker("clip_unlearning", backend="wandb") as tracker:
    tracker.log_config({"strategy": "gradient_ascent", "lr": 1e-4})
    result = unlearner.fit(...)
    tracker.log_metrics({"mia_auc": 0.52, "accuracy": 0.94})
    tracker.log_model(model)

# Hyperparameter search (Optuna or random fallback)
search = HyperparameterSearch(
    objective_fn=my_objective,
    param_space={"lr": {"type": "float", "low": 1e-5, "high": 1e-2, "log": True}},
    n_trials=50,
)
best = search.run()

# Ablation studies
ablation = AblationStudy(base_config={...}, run_fn=run_trial)
ablation.run_full_ablation({"lr": [1e-3, 1e-4, 1e-5], "strategy": ["ga", "scrub"]})
print(ablation.summary())

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📁 Project Structure

erasus/
├── core/           # Base classes, registry, config, types
├── unlearners/     # High-level API (7 modality-specific unlearners)
├── strategies/     # 27 unlearning algorithms (gradient, parameter, data, LLM, diffusion, VLM, ensemble)
├── selectors/      # 19 coreset selection methods (gradient, geometry, learning, ensemble)
├── metrics/        # 15+ evaluation metrics (forgetting, utility, efficiency, privacy)
├── losses/         # 8 loss functions (retain-anchor, Fisher, adversarial, triplet, KL, MMD, L2)
├── visualization/  # Embeddings, loss surfaces, gradients, attention heatmaps, comparisons, reports
├── data/           # Dataset loaders (TOFU, WMDP, COCO, I2P, CC), preprocessing, partitioning
├── models/         # 10 model wrappers (VLM, LLM, diffusion, audio, video)
├── privacy/        # DP mechanisms, privacy accountant, certificates
├── certification/  # Certified removal, statistical verification, theoretical bounds
├── experiments/    # W&B / MLflow / local tracking, HPO, ablation studies
├── cli/            # Command-line interface (unlearn, evaluate, benchmark, visualize)
└── utils/          # Checkpointing, distributed, helpers, logging, callbacks, early stopping

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🏆 Benchmarks

Run standardized benchmarks:

# TOFU Benchmark (LLM unlearning)
python benchmarks/tofu/run.py --strategies gradient_ascent,scrub --epochs 5

# Coreset comparison (knowledge_distillation × all selectors)
python benchmarks/tofu/run_coreset_comparison.py

# MUSE Benchmark (all strategies, leaderboard)
python benchmarks/muse/run_all_strategies.py

# WMDP Benchmark (hazardous knowledge, all strategies)
python benchmarks/wmdp/run_all_strategies.py --subsets bio,cyber

# Full suite
bash scripts/run_benchmarks.sh

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🧑‍💻 Examples

Example	Description
CLIP Coreset Comparison	Compare random vs. gradient_norm selectors
LLaVA Unlearning	VLM unlearning with gradient ascent
LLaMA Concept Removal	Remove concepts from LLaMA
GPT-2 Strategy Comparison	Compare gradient_ascent vs. negative_gradient
LoRA Efficient Unlearning	Parameter-efficient unlearning
SD NSFW Removal	Remove NSFW concepts (Notebook)
SD Artist Removal	Remove artist styles
TOFU Benchmark	End-to-end benchmark (Leaderboard)
Coreset Comparison	knowledge_distillation × all selectors
MUSE Leaderboard	All strategies on MUSE-style data
WMDP Leaderboard	All strategies on WMDP hazardous knowledge
CLIP Object Removal	Remove visual concepts from VLM (MiniCLIP demo)
Code Copyright Removal	Remove proprietary code from LLM (MiniCodeGPT demo)

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✅ Test Status

340 tests passed ✅  |  0 failed  |  54s

python -m pytest tests/ -v --tb=short

Test Suite	Status
Integration (pipelines)	✅
End-to-end	✅
Unit (selectors)	✅
Unit (strategies)	✅
Unit (metrics)	✅
Core / imports / components	✅

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📚 Research References

Erasus integrates and builds upon these key works:

Method	Paper	Venue
SCRUB	Kurmanji et al.	CVPR 2024
Selective Synaptic Dampening	Foster et al.	NeurIPS 2024
Concept Erasure (ESD)	Gandikota et al.	ICCV 2023
Gradient Ascent	Golatkar et al.	NeurIPS 2020
Fisher Forgetting	Golatkar et al.	NeurIPS 2020
CRAIG	Mirzasoleiman et al.	NeurIPS 2020
GLISTER	Killamsetty et al.	ICLR 2021
Influence Functions	Koh & Liang	ICML 2017
TracIn	Pruthi et al.	NeurIPS 2020
Data Shapley	Ghorbani & Zou	ICML 2019
Forgetting Events	Toneva et al.	ICLR 2019
EL2N	Paul et al.	ICML 2021
Amnesiac ML	Graves et al.	S&P 2021

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🗺️ Roadmap

• Core framework (base classes, registry, config)
• 10 model architectures
• 27 unlearning strategies (gradient, parameter, data, LLM, diffusion, VLM, ensemble)
• 19 coreset selectors
• 15+ evaluation metrics (forgetting, utility, efficiency, privacy)
• 8 loss functions (Fisher, adversarial, triplet, L2, retain-anchor, KL, MMD, contrastive)
• Visualization suite (embeddings, landscapes, gradients, attention, comparisons, reports)
• CLI (erasus unlearn, erasus evaluate, erasus benchmark, erasus visualize)
• Certification & privacy modules + theoretical bounds (PAC, influence, certified radius)
• Experiment tracking (W&B, MLflow, local) + HPO + ablation studies
• Benchmark runners (TOFU, WMDP)
• Callbacks & early stopping
• 340+ passing tests
• Additional model architectures (Flamingo, T5, DALL-E, Wav2Vec)
• HuggingFace Hub integration
• Interactive Gradio/Streamlit dashboard
• Tutorial notebooks
• PyPI release

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💡 Project ideas

See project_ideas.md for extension ideas: more SOTA algorithms, benchmarks, integrations, and research directions. Paper reproductions live in papers/reproductions/ (e.g. SCRUB, SSD, Concept Erasure, Fisher Forgetting, SISA, Amnesiac).

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Whether it's new unlearning strategies, coreset selectors, model support, or documentation.

# Setup development environment
git clone https://github.com/OnePunchMonk/erasus.git
cd erasus
pip install -e ".[dev]"
python -m pytest tests/ -v

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📜 License

MIT License — see LICENSE for details.

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📖 Citation

@software{erasus2026,
  title={Erasus: Universal Machine Unlearning via Coreset Selection},
  author={Aggarwal, Avaya},
  year={2026},
  url={https://github.com/OnePunchMonk/erasus}
}

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