PPI uses proxy data to improve inference from limited labels across related tasks.
problem Statistical inference with limited labels across multiple related tasks.
method Prediction-powered inference framework that uses cross-task recalibration to improve power and accuracy.
result Cross-task recalibration can substantially reduce confidence interval widths when labels are scarce.
Study semi-supervised learning with noisy proxy covariates, deriving bounds and showing gains.
problem Learning from noisy proxy covariates with scarce labels.
method Two-stage estimator learning kernel eigenfeatures from all proxy covariates and fitting a ridge predictor on labeled data.
result Finite sample bounds show fast labeled sample rates and consistent gains over supervised and semi-supervised baselines.
Study accelerates NAS research with a large dataset of ZC proxies.
problem Speeding up neural architecture search with ZC proxies.
method Created NAS-Bench-Suite, evaluated 13 ZC proxies across 28 tasks, and provided a unified codebase.
result ZC proxies capture substantial complementary information and can improve NAS algorithm performance.
CUTS removes corruption from models without clean data, improving utility and security.
problem Removing corruption from models without access to clean training data.
method CUTS uses a proxy set to amplify corruption and subtract it from model weights.
result CUTS recovers a large fraction of lost utility and nearly eliminates attacks with minimal damage.
Predicting delayed outcomes is an important problem in recommender systems (e.g., if customers will finish reading an ebook). We formalize the problem as an adversarial, delayed online learning problem and consider how a proxy for the delayed outcome (e.g., if customers read a third of the book in 24 hours) can help mi…
A framework uses proxies to prioritize treatment without estimating causal effects.
problem Prioritizing treatment when causal effects are hard to estimate.
method Decision-focused framework identifying conditions for proxy usefulness.
result Proxies can recover correct effect ordering under specific conditions.
Two proxy methods for causal identification are compared.
problem Identifying causal effects in the presence of unmeasured variables.
method Bridge equation methods vs. array decomposition methods.
result Model restrictions and implications of assumptions differ between methods.
Predictive analytics is increasingly used to guide decision-making in many applications. However, in practice, we often have limited data on the true predictive task of interest, and must instead rely on more abundant data on a closely-related proxy predictive task. For example, e-commerce platforms use abundant custom…
New conditions show proxy data can improve policy learning in sparse expert data contexts.
problem Improving sample complexity of policy learning with sparse expert data.
method Sufficient conditions for proxy data to improve sample complexity, adaptable to LLMs.
result Provable improvement in sample complexity for policy learning with proxy data.
A data proxy reduces NAS computation cost by preserving key examples.
problem High computation cost in Neural Architecture Search (NAS).
method Measuring example importance based on relative accuracy ranking and creating a data proxy.
result Preserves almost same relative accuracy ranking with 10-20x smaller data proxy.
Improved 3D MRI classification using contrastive learning with continuous proxy metadata.
problem Insufficient labelled data for 3D medical image classification.
method Proposed a new loss function (y-Aware InfoNCE) to leverage continuous proxy metadata in contrastive learning.
result 3D CNN model pre-trained on 10^4 multi-site healthy brain MRI scans outperforms fully-supervised methods.
Improved MCMC sampling for expensive, irregular likelihoods.
problem Bayesian inference challenges with irregular, expensive likelihoods.
method Adapt subset samplers, introduce data-driven proxies, adaptive controller.
result Improved HINTS algorithm achieves best sampling error in fixed budget.
We often desire our models to be interpretable as well as accurate. Prior work on optimizing models for interpretability has relied on easy-to-quantify proxies for interpretability, such as sparsity or the number of operations required. In this work, we optimize for interpretability by directly including humans in the …
One of the biggest bottlenecks in a machine learning workflow is waiting for models to train. Depending on the available computing resources, it can take days to weeks to train a neural network on a large dataset with many classes such as ImageNet. For researchers experimenting with new algorithmic approaches, this is …
A multi-task network avoids indirect discrimination in insurance pricing.
problem Indirect discrimination in insurance pricing models based on protected characteristics.
method Multi-task neural network architecture trained with partial protected characteristic information.
result Multi-task network produces discrimination-free insurance prices with comparable accuracy to conventional models.
Robust reinforcement learning agents generalize well to out-of-distribution settings using pretrained representations.
problem Achieving sample-efficient reinforcement learning agents that generalize to real-world settings.
method Trained 240 representations and 10,000 RL policies on a simulated robotic setup, evaluating different pretrained VAE-based representations' effects on OOD generalization.
result Many reinforcement learning agents are surprisingly robust to realistic distribution shifts, including sim-to-real cases.
Bayesian method mitigates negative transfer in unknown source data.
problem Negative transfer in transfer learning where target performance worsens after source data consideration.
method Proxy-informed robust method for probabilistic transfer learning (PROMPT).
result Negative transfer can be mitigated without prior knowledge of source data.
Data selection methods, such as active learning and core-set selection, are useful tools for machine learning on large datasets. However, they can be prohibitively expensive to apply in deep learning because they depend on feature representations that need to be learned. In this work, we show that we can greatly improv…
New method removes unwanted information from representations efficiently.
problem Learning representations that are uninformative about a target variable.
method Adversarial training with a novel proxy metric for mutual information, leading to an analytically computable approximation.
result Our method effectively removes unwanted information with limited time budget.
New concept: reward hacking, where optimizing a flawed reward function can hurt performance.
problem Optimizing imperfect reward functions leads to poor performance.
method Formal definition and analysis of reward hacking, examining conditions for unhackability.
result Reward functions are usually hackable, making it hard to align AI with human values.
New method improves ensemble inference for high-class tasks.
problem High inference costs for ensemble models.
method Proxy-Dirichlet target to minimize reverse KL-divergence.
result Resolves gradient issues for large-scale classification tasks.
Improved transfer learning with expert models, reducing compute and speeding up performance.
problem Improving sample efficiency and reducing computational requirements for new tasks.
method Training a diverse set of experts using existing label structures and performance proxies to select the relevant expert for each target task.
result Significant speed-up of 2-3 orders of magnitude compared to competing approaches.
A new framework improves VaR recalibration by balancing reliance on imperfect volatility proxies.
problem How to balance reliance on imperfect volatility proxies in one-sided VaR recalibration.
method Proxy-reliance control framework that interpolates between constant-shift and proxy-scaled corrections.
result Lower or intermediate proxy reliance can outperform fully proxy-scaled recalibration in stressed left-tail VaR control.
ProxySHAP approximates Shapley and Banzhaf interactions efficiently.
problem Efficient estimation of complex machine learning interactions.
method ProxySHAP combines tree-based proxy models with residual correction.
result ProxySHAP achieves state-of-the-art interaction approximation quality.
We present a proxy dataset of vital signs with class labels indicating patient transitions from the ward to intensive care units called Ward2ICU. Patient privacy is protected using a Wasserstein Generative Adversarial Network to implicitly learn an approximation of the data distribution, allowing us to sample synthetic…
Algorithm optimizes biological sequences using bootstrapped training with a score-conditioned generator.
problem Optimizing biological sequences for a black-box score function.
method Bootstrapped training of score-conditioned generator (BootGen) algorithm.
result Our method outperforms competitive baselines on biological sequential design tasks.
We develop a proxy model based on deep learning methods to accelerate the simulations of oil reservoirs--by three orders of magnitude--compared to industry-strength physics-based PDE solvers. This paper describes a new architectural approach to this task, accompanied by a thorough experimental evaluation on a publicly …
Proposes P-learner for estimating treatment effects with proxy variables.
problem Estimating treatment effect heterogeneity in settings with unverifiable exchangeability.
method Two-stage loss function for learning heterogeneous treatment effects with proxy variables.
result P-learner satisfies an oracle bound on estimated error.
Unified framework for analyzing neural networks trained by gradient descent.
problem Lack of generalizable guarantees for neural networks trained by gradient descent.
method Proxy convexity and proxy Polyak-Lojasiewicz inequalities.
result Unified guarantees for neural networks trained by gradient descent.
Paper proposes RRD to learn proxy rewards for sparse delayed rewards in episodic reinforcement learning.
problem Learning from sparse and delayed rewards in reinforcement learning.
method Randomized Return Decomposition (RRD) algorithm to redistribute rewards.
result Substantial improvement over baseline algorithms in experiments.
Under the Solvency II regime, life insurance companies are asked to derive their solvency capital requirements from the full loss distributions over the coming year. Since the industry is currently far from being endowed with sufficient computational capacities to fully simulate these distributions, the insurers have t…
DFPV improves PCL for confounded bandit policy evaluation.
problem Estimating causal effects in confounded settings with high-dimensional data.
method Deep feature proxy variable method (DFPV) for high-dimensional, nonlinear relationships.
result DFPV outperforms state-of-the-art methods on synthetic benchmarks and confounded bandit problems.
New method recovers latent confounders from high-dimensional proxy variables.
problem Detecting latent confounders from high-dimensional proxy variables.
method Proxy Confounder Factorization (PCF) framework using ICA-PCF and GD-PCF.
result ICA-PCF recovers confounders with high correlation and low error in synthetic and real-world data.
Single proxy variable helps estimate causal effects from confounders.
problem Estimating causal effects from treatment to outcome when unobserved confounders are present.
method Assumes a single, potentially multi-dimensional proxy variable of the unobserved confounder and a known mechanism generating the proxy from the confounder. Proves causal effects are identifiable under completeness assumption.
result Causal effects are identifiable under SPICE assumption.
A scalable method for deep metric learning using chance constraints.
problem Improving deep metric learning by addressing feasibility issues.
method Relating DML to chance constraints, reformulating as a feasibility problem, and iteratively training proxies.
result The method effectively improves deep metric learning performance across multiple benchmarks.
Develops methods to improve demand counterfactuals from imperfect proxies.
problem Imperfect proxies in demand models lead to biased counterfactuals and invalid inference.
method Practical toolkit for market-level and individual data, requiring minimal computation.
result Improves substitution prediction and counterfactual performance.
New method handles many noisy proxy controls for causal inference.
problem Causal inference with many noisy proxy controls and unknown confounders.
method Linear models with rank-restricted and sparse nuisance parameters, penalization methods.
result Estimators achieve better performance in high dimensions, especially with many proxies.
A machine learning model may exhibit discrimination when used to make decisions involving people. One potential cause for such outcomes is that the model uses a statistical proxy for a protected demographic attribute. In this paper we formulate a definition of proxy use for the setting of linear regression and present …
A new probabilistic approach improves deep metric learning by considering image uncertainties and class-specific variances.
problem Proxy-based deep metric learning struggles with image uncertainties and class-specific structures.
method Introduces non-isotropic probabilistic proxy-based deep metric learning using directional von Mises-Fisher distributions.
result Improves generalization performance and competitive on standard benchmarks.
Proposes a method to create robust linear models with noisy proxies of unobserved variables.
problem Learning robust linear models to handle interventions on unobserved variables with noisy proxies.
method Regularization term that balances in-distribution performance and robustness to interventions.
result Single proxy can create prediction optimal estimators under interventions of bounded strength.
Bayesian method estimates causal effects with proxy networks.
problem Estimating causal effects with only proxy measurements of a latent interference network.
method Structural causal model with Block Gibbs sampler and Locally Informed Proposals.
result Accurately estimates causal effects even with noisy proxy networks.
Kernel methods estimate causal effects with a single proxy for deterministic confounders.
problem Estimating causal effects with a single proxy for an unobserved confounder.
method Two kernel-based methods: two-stage regression and maximum moment restriction.
result Both kernel methods can consistently estimate the causal effect.
Paper analyzes self-supervised learning using causal methods and proposes a new objective.
problem Lack of theoretical understanding of self-supervised learning success.
method Uses a causal framework to enforce invariance constraints on proxy classifiers.
result ReLIC objective improves generalization guarantees and outperforms existing methods.
Estimates proxy-based inference adjustments for distribution shifts.
problem Imperfect proxy data leads to biased inference.
method Empirical calibration of proxy-primary metric discrepancy as a random effect.
result Empowers inference without individual-level response data.
Discovering causal relations is fundamental to reasoning and intelligence. In particular, observational causal discovery algorithms estimate the cause-effect relation between two random entities X and Y, given n samples from P(X,Y). In this paper, we develop a framework to estimate the cause-effect relation bet…
Study shows how adjusting for a binary proxy can bound causal effects.
problem Bounding causal effects with a binary confounder and proxy.
method Monotonicity assumption applied to a binary confounder and observed proxy.
result Adjusting for a proxy produces a measure of the effect between unadjusted and true measures.
New framework for choosing optimal proxy metrics from past experiments.
problem Difficult to measure long-term treatment effects in experiments.
method Statistical framework to define and construct optimal proxy metrics.
result Optimal proxy metric depends on experiment's sample size.
New methods identify causal effects without needing complete proxy variables.
problem Identifying causal effects in the presence of unmeasured confounders.
method Partial identification methods that do not require completeness of proxy variables.
result Obtain bounds on causal effects using available proxy variables.