Generalization in VAE and Diffusion Models: A Unified Information-Theoretic Analysis — Paper

Abstract

Despite the empirical success of Diffusion Models (DMs) and Variational Autoencoders (VAEs), their generalization performance remains theoretically underexplored, especially lacking a full consideration of the shared encoder-generator structure. Leveraging recent information-theoretic tools, we propose a unified theoretical framework that provides guarantees for the generalization of both the encoder and generator by treating them as randomized mappings. This framework further enables (1) a refined analysis for VAEs, accounting for the generator's generalization, which was previously overlooked; (2) illustrating an explicit trade-off in generalization terms for DMs that depends on the diffusion time $T$; and (3) providing computable bounds for DMs based solely on the training data, allowing the selection of the optimal $T$ and the integration of such bounds into the optimization process to improve model performance. Empirical results on both synthetic and real datasets illustrate the validity of the proposed theory.

Authors 3

Qi Chen, Jierui Zhu, Florian Shkurti

Specification

Official page: arxiv.org/abs/2506.00849
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 5 h agohigh
Arxiv announce type: replace
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 5 h agohigh
arXiv id: 2506.00849
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 5 h agohigh
Categories: cs.LG, cs.AI
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 5 h agohigh
PDF: arxiv.org/pdf/2506.00849
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 5 h agohigh
Primary category: cs.LG
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 5 h agohigh
Published: 11 Sept 2026
Source:arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1observed 5 h agohigh

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9

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T19

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5 h ago

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None

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Authors: Qi Chen, Jierui Zhu, Florian Shkurti

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Value	Valid from → to	Status	Source	Confidence	Extractor
cs.LG, cs.AI	11 Sept 2026 21:02 UTC → current	current	arXiv (Atom API + RSS)T1	high	deterministic

Claims are temporal and append-only: a new observation closes the previous claim (valid_to) instead of overwriting it. Conflicting claims from different sources are kept side by side and flagged — never averaged. Methodology →

11 Sept 2026
New paperPaperGeneralization in VAE and Diffusion Models: A Unified Information-Theoretic Analysis
New paper: Generalization in VAE and Diffusion Models: A Unified Information-Theoretic Analysis
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Source	Document	Type	Tier	Last observed	Snapshots
arXiv (Atom API + RSS)	rss.arxiv.org/rss/cs.LG	feed	T1· Official	3 h ago	1

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