用大模型当进化优化器,自动搜寻表格数据的高效特征变换。
LLM-FE: Automated Feature Engineering for Tabular Data with LLMs as Evolutionary Optimizers
- 把特征工程转为程序搜索,大模型迭代生成新变换。
- 在多个分类与回归任务上显著超越现有基线方法。
- 适合需要自动化特征设计的数据科学场景。
自动化特征工程对提升表格学习任务的预测模型性能至关重要。传统方法受限于预设变换和手动设计的搜索空间,常忽略领域知识。近期基于大语言模型(LLMs)的方法虽能融入领域知识,但多采用直接提示或仅依赖验证分数选择特征,未能利用先前实验的洞察,也缺乏特征生成与数据驱动性能间的有效推理。为此,我们提出 LLM-FE,一种结合进化搜索与大模型领域知识及推理能力的新框架,用于自动发现表格学习任务的有效特征。LLM-FE 将特征工程建模为程序搜索问题,由大模型迭代提出新的特征变换程序,并通过数据驱动反馈引导搜索过程。结果表明,LLM-FE 在多种分类与回归基准上持续优于先进基线,显著提升表格预测模型性能。代码已开源:https://github.com/nikhilsab/LLMFE。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Automated feature engineering plays a critical role in improving predictive model performance for tabular learning tasks. Traditional automated feature engineering methods are limited by their reliance on pre-defined transformations within fixed, manually designed search spaces, often neglecting domain knowledge. Recent advances using Large Language Models (LLMs) have enabled the integration of domain knowledge into the feature engineering process. However, existing LLM-based approaches use direct prompting or rely solely on validation scores for feature selection, failing to leverage insights from prior feature discovery experiments or establish meaningful reasoning between feature generation and data-driven performance. To address these challenges, we propose LLM-FE, a novel framework that combines evolutionary search with the domain knowledge and reasoning capabilities of LLMs to automatically discover effective features for tabular learning tasks. LLM-FE formulates feature engineering as a program search problem, where LLMs propose new feature transformation programs iteratively, and data-driven feedback guides the search process. Our results demonstrate that LLM-FE consistently outperforms state-of-the-art baselines, significantly enhancing the performance of tabular prediction models across diverse classification and regression benchmarks. The code is available at: https://github.com/nikhilsab/LLMFE
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