Unsafe by Reciprocity: How Generation-Understanding Coupling Undermines Safety in Unified Multimodal Models
Recent advances in Large Language Models (LLMs) and Text-to-Image (T2I) models have led to the emergence of Unified Multimodal Models (UMMs), where multimodal understanding and image generation are tightly integrated within a shared architecture. Prior studies suggest that such reciprocity enhances cross-functionality performance through shared representations and joint optimization. However, the safety implications of this tight coupling remain largely unexplored, as existing safety research predominantly analyzes understanding and generation functionalities in isolation. In this work, we investigate whether cross-functionality reciprocity itself constitutes a structural source of vulner...
| Authors | Kaishen Wang, Heng Huang |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.CV |
| Published | 28 March 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 15 September 2026 |
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