DecisionUnlearn-Bench: Unlearning Probabilistic Decisions under Changing Schemas

Abstract

Machine unlearning aims to reproduce the behavior of a model trained without designated data. For probabilistic decision models, this target also depends on the candidate options supplied at inference. We introduce DecisionUnlearn-Bench, an empirical framework that compares full, unlearned, and retain-only models across deletion granularities, label renderings, and candidate sets. Across 20 eligible model configurations on the BANKING77 dataset, full-to-oracle displacement increases consistently from example to association to class deletion. Replacing semantic option labels with opaque codes nearly eliminates the retrained oracle's recognition of deleted classes, even with successful acquisition of the full model, whereas changing the candidate set alters both the oracle and the measured unlearning progress. SimNPO satisfies the screening criterion in 19 of 20 configurations, but its gains vary substantially across seeds and deletion targets. Development tuning on the CLINC150 dataset does not establish a positive pooled effect across 48 intents. At approximately matched suppression, methods can differ markedly in oracle fidelity. Recovery experiments further distinguish initial forgetting from subsequent adaptation and show conclusions that depend on both architecture and metric. These results show that evaluating decision-model unlearning relative to a schema-specific retraining target, with separate reporting of effect size, utility, robustness, and recoverability.