Machine Unlearning: Challenges in Data Quality and Access

Machine unlearning aims to remove specific knowledge from a well-trained machine learning model. This topic has gained significant attention recently due to the widespread adoption of machine learning models across various applications and the accompanying privacy, legal, and ethical considerations. During the unlearning process, models are typically presented with data that specifies which information should be erased and which should be retained. Nonetheless, practical challenges arise due to prevalent issues of data quality issues and access restrictions. This paper explores these challenges and introduces strategies to address problems related to unsupervised data, weakly supervised data, and scenarios characterized by zero-shot and federated data availability. Finally, we discuss related open questions, particularly concerning evaluation metrics, how the forgetting information is represented and delivered, and the unique challenges posed by large generative models.