提出可计算的识别信息理论,解决模型在不确定性中判断新信息与正确假设的问题。
Identifying Information from Observations with Uncertainty and Novelty
- 用指示函数定义识别信息,量化观察对假设的验证或否定能力。
- 证明了在有限步内识别数据生成过程所需的样本复杂度特性。
- 适用于从确定性到平稳随机过程的各类模型,支持新信息检测与学习效率分析。
机器从观测中学习任务时必须处理不确定性和新颖性,尤其在面对新信息时保持性能,并选择最符合当前观测的假设。本文提出“识别信息”概念,即验证或否定某一假设作为数据生成过程的比特数。通过在假设集上计算指示函数,将算法与概率信息理论统一,推导出假设识别的样本复杂度及其信息论性质。该框架涵盖从确定性过程到平稳遍历随机过程的数据生成机制,连接有限步识别与渐近统计及PAC学习。指示函数的计算自然形式化了新信息的识别,能检测假设集的错误设定。进一步证明,可计算的PAC-Bayes学习者的样本复杂度分布由其关于固定有限假设集先验分布的矩决定,因此可在资源允许范围内以任意精度逼近该分布。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
A machine that learns a task from observations must encounter and process uncertainty and novelty, especially when it is to maintain performance when observing new information and to select the hypothesis that best fits the current observations. In this context, some key questions arise: what and how much information did the observations provide, how much information is required to identify the data-generating process, how many observations remain to get that information, and how does a predictor determine that it has observed novel information? We formalize identifying information to answer these questions and synthesize prior works. Identifying information are bits that verify or falsify a hypothesis as the data-generating process. In this formalization, we prove the information theoretic characteristics of the computation of hypothesis identification and the resulting sample complexity. We define hypothesis identification and sample complexity via the computation of an indicator function over a set of hypotheses, bridging algorithmic and probabilistic information. We detail the sample complexity and its properties for data-generating processes ranging from deterministic processes to ergodic stationary stochastic processes, which connect the notion of identifying information in finite steps with asymptotic statistics and PAC-learning. The indicator function's computation naturally formalizes novel information and its identification from observations with respect to a hypothesis set, which detects a misspecified hypothesis set. We also proved that a computable PAC-Bayes learners' sample complexity distribution is determined by its moments in terms of the prior probability distribution over a fixed finite hypothesis set, and thus an approximation of the sample complexity distribution is always computable within the desired precision that resources allow.
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