2604.01319 Continual Learning Methods Fail Catastrophically When Task Boundaries Are Gradual Rather Than Discrete
Continual learning methods are universally evaluated under a discrete task-boundary assumption, where distribution shifts occur instantaneously between clearly delineated tasks. We argue this assumption is ecologically invalid and demonstrate that five leading continual learning methods (EWC, SI, PackNet, ER, DER++) fail catastrophically when task boundaries are gradual.