新方法让预测集自动适应数据随机性,兼顾准确与紧凑。
Adaptive Conformal Inference through the Lens of Blackwell Approachability
- 将预测问题转化为博弈,用黑尔策略动态调整预测区间大小
- 在随机和对抗性数据下均实现最优预测效率,中间情况也有效
- 适合时间序列等现实场景,无需预设数据分布假设
本文研究在线共形推断(ACI)的自适应版本:在观测特征后、结果未揭示前逐轮生成预测集,需同时满足有效性(覆盖率)和效率(平均长度)。传统方法虽能保证覆盖率收敛至目标水平,但缺乏效率保障。作者将此问题建模为双人重复博弈,以向量收益编码有效性与效率,并引入基于黑尔可接近性及伯恩斯坦扩展的策略。该策略确保有效性的同时,能根据对手行为的随机程度自适应调节预测区间的效率。结果实现‘多世界最优’:在交换性与对抗性数据中恢复相应效率边界,在典型应用如时间序列预测的中间情形也提供稳健保证。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
This article considers an online version of conformal inference, called adaptive conformal inference [ACI] and introduced by Gibbs and Candès (2021): prediction sets are issued sequentially, after observing features and before the outcomes are revealed. These sets are evaluated both in terms of validity (the fraction of rounds where the outcome was lying in the prediction set) and efficiency (the average lengths of the prediction sets). The two criteria point to different directions (validity favors larger sets). We also target a wide range of scenarios, with exchangeable data and arbitrary data (lack of any stochastic guarantees) as two extremes. A series of existing strategies for ACI typically guarantee that empirical coverage converges to the desired level for arbitrary sequences, but they generally lack simultaneous efficiency guarantees. To provide a unified study, we first formulate ACI as a repeated two-player game with finite action sets and vector-valued payoffs encoding validity and efficiency. Building on this reformulation, we introduce a strategy based on Blackwell approachability and on its opportunistic extension by Bernstein et al. (2014) that ensures validity while adapting the efficiency of the prediction intervals to the underlying degree of stochasticity of the opponent player. The resulting guarantee is "best of many worlds": it recovers the relevant efficiency guarantees in exchangeable and adversarial settings, and provides guarantees in intermediate settings that arise in typical applications such as the forecasting of time series.
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