PRI-VAE learns disentangled representations by optimizing principle-of-relevant-information.
problem Learning disentangled representations under VAE framework remains unknown.
method Proposes PRI-VAE, a novel learning objective to optimize disentanglement.
result Demonstrates effectiveness of PRI-VAE on four benchmark datasets.
Despite great popularity of applying softmax to map the non-normalised outputs of a neural network to a probability distribution over predicting classes, this normalised exponential transformation still seems to be artificial. A theoretic framework that incorporates softmax as an intrinsic component is still lacking. I…
Unified framework for comparing clusterings from information-theoretic and pair-counting perspectives.
problem Divergent evaluations of unsupervised models due to different clustering similarity measures.
method Developed an analytical framework that unifies pair-counting and information-theoretic clustering similarity measures.
result Unified framework clarifies when and why the two regimes diverge and provides a principled basis for selecting and interpreting clustering similarity measures.
Stochastic volatility models describe asset prices St as driven by an unobserved process capturing the random dynamics of volatility σt. Here, we quantify how much information about σt can be inferred from asset prices St in terms of Shannon's mutual information I(St:σt). This motivates a careful nume…
Framework for understanding overfitting and underfitting using information theory.
problem Understanding and preventing overfitting and underfitting in machine learning.
method Information-theoretic framework measuring algorithm capacity and dataset information transfer.
result Upper-bounding algorithm capacity and establishing its relationship to machine learning quantities.
Unified treatment of PAC-Bayesian and information-theoretic generalization bounds.
problem Generalization capabilities of machine learning algorithms.
method PAC-Bayesian and information-theoretic perspectives.
result Unified treatment and modular structure of proofs.
Unified framework connects EI and information-theoretic acquisition functions.
problem Distinguish between Expected Improvement and information-theoretic acquisition functions.
method Introduces Variational Entropy Search (VES) to unify EI and information-theoretic approaches.
result EI can be seen as a variational inference approximation of Max-value Entropy Search (MES).
Study OOD generalization in meta-reinforcement learning using information theory.
problem Understanding how meta-reinforcement learning handles distribution shifts.
method Information-theoretic analysis of Markov Decision Processes and gradient-based algorithms.
result Established fine-grained generalization bounds for meta-reinforcement learning.
This work tackles online memory selection in continual learning using information theory.
problem Online selection of a representative replay memory from data streams.
method Information-theoretic criteria (surprise, learnability) and Bayesian model for efficient computation.
result InfoRS improves robustness against data imbalance compared to reservoir sampling.
Kernel methods linked to feature subspaces and maximal correlation kernels.
problem Understanding kernel methods and their relationship to feature extraction.
method Established a correspondence between feature subspaces and kernels, introduced maximal correlation kernels, and demonstrated their optimality.
result Kernel SVM on maximal correlation kernel achieves minimum prediction error.
Model selection in clustering requires (i) to specify a suitable clustering principle and (ii) to control the model order complexity by choosing an appropriate number of clusters depending on the noise level in the data. We advocate an information theoretic perspective where the uncertainty in the measurements quantize…
Unified framework for removing unwanted information from machine learning models.
problem Removing undesirable features or data points from machine learning models while preserving utility.
method Information-theoretic regularization approach for data point and feature unlearning.
result Unified mathematical framework with provable guarantees for both data point and feature unlearning.
This paper analyzes self-supervised learning from a multi-view perspective.
problem Understanding and optimizing self-supervised learning from multi-view data.
method Information-theoretical framework to understand and design self-supervised learning objectives.
result Self-supervised representations can extract task-relevant information and discard task-irrelevant information.
Improved robust regression with clean covariates achieves better rates than Huber's model.
problem Robust regression under adaptive contamination of responses with clean covariates.
method Exploiting clean covariates to construct an estimator achieving better rates than Huber's model.
result Improved estimation rate even with constant contamination, achieving consistency.
Training feedforward neural networks with standard logistic activations is considered difficult because of the intrinsic properties of these sigmoidal functions. This work aims at showing that these networks can be trained to achieve generalization performance comparable to those based on hyperbolic tangent activations…
New TDA approach using Finsler metrics.
problem Traditional TDA concepts and methods.
method Introducing Finsler metrics for TDA.
result Relevance of Finsler metrics to TDA.
Novel kernelized Renyi's entropy improves deep learning generalization bounds.
problem Improving generalization bounds for deep learning algorithms.
method Kernelized Renyi's entropy, a new information theoretical measure.
result Theoretical bounds are tighter than current SOTA results.
New framework connects online learning to statistical learning for better generalization bounds.
problem Deriving generalization bounds for statistical learning algorithms.
method Constructing an online learning game and showing a connection to statistical learning.
result Established a connection between online and statistical learning, leading to new generalization bounds.
This tutorial paper focuses on the variants of the bottleneck problem taking an information theoretic perspective and discusses practical methods to solve it, as well as its connection to coding and learning aspects. The intimate connections of this setting to remote source-coding under logarithmic loss distortion meas…
We compare and contrast the statistical physics and quantum physics inspired approaches for unsupervised generative modeling of classical data. The two approaches represent probabilities of observed data using energy-based models and quantum states respectively.Classical and quantum information patterns of the target d…
Unified framework for fairness, robustness, and distribution shifts.
problem Diverse failure modes of machine learning systems.
method Formalizes biases as violations of conditional independence and proves equivalence conditions.
result Equivalent effects of biases in different failure modes under specific conditions.
Optimizes kernel density ratios for better predictions and information measures.
problem Improving accuracy of kernel density estimates for density ratios.
method Derives an optimal weight function using calculus of variations.
result Reduces bias in kernel density estimates, leading to improved prediction posteriors and information-theoretic measures.
We introduce instancewise feature selection as a methodology for model interpretation. Our method is based on learning a function to extract a subset of features that are most informative for each given example. This feature selector is trained to maximize the mutual information between selected features and the respon…
In this paper we study the frequentist convergence rate for the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (Blei et al., 2003) topic models. We show that the maximum likelihood estimator converges to one of the finitely many equivalent parameters in Wasserstein's distance metric at a rate of n−1/4 without assuming separability o…
A new method for forgetting data from trained models using information theory.
problem Efficiently forgetting private or copyrighted data from trained machine learning models.
method An information-theoretic approach to zero-shot unlearning, minimizing gradient smoothing.
result Our method successfully unlearns data while maintaining model performance.
New framework converts offline to online estimation using black-box offline estimators.
problem Convert offline estimation algorithms to online estimation algorithms.
method Oracle-Efficient Online Estimation (OEOE) framework.
result Achieves near-optimal online estimation error via black-box offline estimators.
The paper tackles best arm identification with minimal regret in experiments.
problem Identifying the best arm with minimal regret in experiments.
method Information-theoretic techniques and Double KL-UCB algorithm.
result Achieves asymptotic optimality in identifying the best arm with minimal regret.
New method recovers curvature from heat diffusion data.
problem Recovering Riemannian curvature from heat diffusion.
method Information-theoretic approach using relative entropy.
result Local curvature determined by heat diffusion.
This work connects conformal prediction to information theory for uncertainty estimation.
problem Uncertainty estimation in machine learning models.
method Information theory applied to conformal prediction.
result Proven ways to upper bound intrinsic uncertainty using information theory.
Paper reinterprets majorizing measure theorem in terms of coding theory.
problem Understanding boundedness of random processes.
method Information-theoretic perspective using variable-length codes.
result Boundedness of random processes linked to efficient coding.
New approach connects robust learning to privacy issues.
problem Vulnerability of deep neural networks to adversarial examples.
method Privacy-utility tradeoff and rate-distortion theory.
result Found saddle point via maximum conditional entropy problem.
In this paper, we obtain generic bounds on the variances of estimation and prediction errors in time series analysis via an information-theoretic approach. It is seen in general that the error bounds are determined by the conditional entropy of the data point to be estimated or predicted given the side information or p…
Optimal adversarial attacks minimize mutual information, revealing classifier vulnerabilities.
problem Designing optimal attacks to degrade machine learning performance.
method Information-theoretic approach to finding optimal perturbations.
result Optimal attacks minimize mutual information between degraded and original signals.
Proposes a method for private aggregation in heterogeneous federated learning.
problem Ensuring resilience to Byzantine clients and maintaining client data privacy in federated learning with heterogeneous data.
method Careful co-design of verifiable secret sharing, secure aggregation, and private information retrieval scheme.
result Achieves information-theoretic privacy guarantees and Byzantine resilience under data heterogeneity.
Proposes EPIG for active learning to improve predictive performance.
problem Suboptimal predictive performance of traditional active learning methods.
method Introduces EPIG, a new acquisition function measuring information gain in the space of predictions.
result EPIG leads to stronger predictive performance compared to BALD across various datasets and models.
New bounds improve generalization in learning scenarios.
problem Limitations of existing information-theoretic bounds in SCO problems.
method Sample-conditioned hypothesis stability and neighboring-hypothesis matrix.
result Sharper generalization guarantees in various learning scenarios.
New bounds show limitations of sample-wise information-theoretic generalization.
problem Limitations of sample-wise information-theoretic generalization bounds.
method Analysis of existing bounds and derivation of new bounds.
result No sample-wise information-theoretic bounds exist for expected squared generalization gap.
In this work, we consider the problem of autonomously discovering behavioral abstractions, or options, for reinforcement learning agents. We propose an algorithm that focuses on the termination condition, as opposed to -- as is common -- the policy. The termination condition is usually trained to optimize a control obj…
Reconstructs Riemannian geometry from diffusion properties.
problem Recovering Riemannian geometry from diffusion data.
method Intrinsic reconstruction from diffusion semigroup and calculus.
result Reveals Riemannian structure from diffusion properties.
Information-theoretic Bayesian optimisation techniques have demonstrated state-of-the-art performance in tackling important global optimisation problems. However, current information-theoretic approaches require many approximations in implementation, introduce often-prohibitive computational overhead and limit the choi…
The behaviour of many real-world phenomena can be modelled by nonlinear dynamical systems whereby a latent system state is observed through a filter. We are interested in interacting subsystems of this form, which we model by a set of coupled maps as a synchronous update graph dynamical systems. Specifically, we study …
Kernel embeddings separate distinct probability distributions, simplifying testing.
problem Testing equality of non-atomic probability distributions.
method Kernel covariance embeddings and Gaussian measures in reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces.
result Testing for singularity between Gaussian measures is equivalent to testing for equality of non-atomic probability distributions.
For many structured learning tasks, the data annotation process is complex and costly. Existing annotation schemes usually aim at acquiring completely annotated structures, under the common perception that partial structures are of low quality and could hurt the learning process. This paper questions this common percep…
New research shows existing information-theoretic methods can't establish minimax rates for gradient descent in stochastic convex optimization.
problem Establishing minimax rates for gradient descent in stochastic convex optimization using information-theoretic methods.
method Examined several information-theoretic frameworks including input-output mutual information bounds, conditional mutual information bounds, PAC-Bayes bounds, and their variants.
result Proved that none of the examined information-theoretic frameworks can establish minimax rates for gradient descent in stochastic convex optimization.
The paper critiques existing uncertainty concepts and proposes a new decision-theoretic approach.
problem Incoherence in existing discussions of aleatoric and epistemic uncertainty.
method Decision-theoretic perspective that relates uncertainty, predictive performance, and statistical dispersion.
result Popular information-theoretic quantities can be poor estimators but still useful for guiding data acquisition.
The stochastic block model is one of the oldest and most ubiquitous models for studying clustering and community detection. In an exciting sequence of developments, motivated by deep but non-rigorous ideas from statistical physics, Decelle et al. conjectured a sharp threshold for when community detection is possible in…
Information theoretic criteria (ITC) have been widely adopted in engineering and statistics for selecting, among an ordered set of candidate models, the one that better fits the observed sample data. The selected model minimizes a penalized likelihood metric, where the penalty is determined by the criterion adopted. Wh…
Estimating individual level treatment effects (ITE) from observational data is a challenging and important area in causal machine learning and is commonly considered in diverse mission-critical applications. In this paper, we propose an information theoretic approach in order to find more reliable representations for e…