研究如何在有限预算下,平衡评估样本数与标注人数,提升机器学习评估的可靠性。
Forest vs Tree: The $(N, K)$ Trade-off in Reproducible ML Evaluation
- 通过分析多标注数据集,找到在固定预算下最优的样本数与标注人数组合。
- 发现多数情况下只需1000个总标注量($N \times K$),且每项需超过10人标注才能可靠。
- 不同评估指标对标注人数敏感度不同,分布敏感型指标更受益于高标注人数。
可复现性是机器学习评估可信度的基础。然而,评估数据常依赖人工标注,而人类标注者间存在普遍分歧,现有研究极少关注这一问题。由于标注预算有限,增加每个样本的标注人数会显著提高成本。本文研究在固定预算($N \times K$)下,样本数 $N$ 与每项标注数 $K$ 的权衡关系。通过对多个具有多标注的分类数据集及模拟分布的分析,发现:在至少一个指标上,可靠评估所需的 $N \times K$ 不超过1000,且多数情况发生在 $K > 10$ 时。此外,$K$ 与 $N$ 的权衡关系取决于评估指标——对响应分布敏感的指标在更高 $K$ 下表现更优。本方法可帮助从业者在预算内优化数据收集策略,提升评估可靠性。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Reproducibility is a cornerstone of scientific validation and of the authority it confers on its results. Reproducibility in machine learning evaluations leads to greater trust, confidence, and value. However, the ground truth responses used in machine learning often necessarily come from humans, among whom disagreement is prevalent, and surprisingly little research has studied the impact of effectively ignoring disagreement in these responses, as is typically the case. One reason for the lack of research is that budgets for collecting human-annotated evaluation data are limited, and obtaining more samples from multiple raters for each example greatly increases the per-item annotation costs. We investigate the trade-off between the number of items ($N$) and the number of responses per item ($K$) needed for reliable machine learning evaluation. We analyze a diverse collection of categorical datasets for which multiple annotations per item exist, and simulated distributions fit to these datasets, to determine the optimal $(N, K)$ configuration, given a fixed budget ($N \times K$), for collecting evaluation data and reliably comparing the performance of machine learning models. Our findings show, first, that accounting for human disagreement may come with $N \times K$ at no more than 1000 (and often much lower) for every dataset tested on at least one metric. Moreover, this minimal $N \times K$ almost always occurred for $K > 10$. Furthermore, the nature of the tradeoff between $K$ and $N$, or if one even existed, depends on the evaluation metric, with metrics that are more sensitive to the full distribution of responses performing better at higher levels of $K$. Our methods can be used to help ML practitioners get more effective test data by finding the optimal metrics and number of items and annotations per item to collect to get the most reliability for their budget.
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