Spiking generative networks empowered by multiple dynamic experts for lifelong learning

Abstract

Spiking neural networks (SNNs) have garnered significant attention due to their ultra-high-speed and ultra-low-power operation, rendering them suitable for a range of energy-efficient applications. However, their performance in image generation is relatively mediocre, resulting in a lack of an effective generative replay mechanism to handle sequential probabilistic representations of multiple datasets. Consequently, this limitation often leads to catastrophic forgetting. This paper introduces a novel SNN lifelong learning framework namely Dynamic Lifelong learning with Spiking Generative Networks (DL-SGN), aimed at providing better generation ability while mitigating the problem of catastrophic forgetting in a continual learning scenario. DL-SGN comprises three key components: dynamic experts, a student, and an assistant. The dynamic expert is implemented as a dynamically expanding mixture model, with a proposed network expansion mechanism Dynamic Knowledge Adversarial Fusion (DKAF) facilitating the automatic handling of an increasing number of tasks. the student module adopts an SNN-based Variational Autoencoder (VAE) and classifier, leveraging accumulated knowledge from each expert. To enhance the student’s ability to generalize to images, we introduce a discriminator as an assistant module trained using adversarial training. We validate the effectiveness of the proposed by conducting experiments on image generation and classification in a lifelong learning environment, and the results substantiate the effectiveness of DL-SGN.