Why Parallel Generation Struggles: Masked Diffusion Models' Coherence Problem
A technical thread explains that masked diffusion models sample tokens conditionally independently within a step, producing jointly incoherent outputs—like a player resigning and winning in the same game. This limits parallel speedup on structured reasoning tasks such as sudoku.
2026-09-05 ~ 2026-09-05 · 3 related posts
- Conditional independence limits parallel token generation in masked diffusion models — alec_helbling · 2026-09-05
- Chess example shows diffusion models sampling jointly incoherent assignments — alec_helbling · 2026-09-05
- Structured reasoning tasks may cap diffusion models' parallel speedups — alec_helbling · 2026-09-05