arXiv:2512.05456stat.MLcs.LG2025-12被引 2

用预测数据做推断会出错,即使预测准也不行。

Do We Really Even Need Data? A Modern Look at Drawing Inference with Predicted Data

  • 用预训练模型预测的数据替代真实数据做推断
  • 高预测精度仍可能导致偏差和方差错误
  • 适合关注数据替代方法的科研人员

随着人工智能工具日益普及,科学家面临数据采集成本上升、调查响应率下降等挑战,越来越多研究使用预训练算法的预测值替代缺失或未观测数据。尽管在经济和后勤上具有吸引力,但使用标准推断工具时,若将真实未观测结果替换为预测值,可能扭曲自变量与目标变量之间的关联。本文系统分析了使用预测数据进行推断(IPD)的统计挑战,表明高预测准确度并不能保证下游推断的有效性。所有此类失败均可归结为两类统计问题:(i) 偏差——预测系统性改变估计量或扭曲变量间关系;(ii) 方差——忽略预测模型的不确定性及真实数据的内在变异性。我们回顾了近期针对IPD的方法,并指出该框架深深植根于经典统计理论。最后讨论若干开放问题与未来研究方向,并提出科学使用预测数据应兼具透明性与统计严谨性。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

As artificial intelligence and machine learning tools become more accessible, and scientists face new obstacles to data collection (e.g., rising costs, declining survey response rates), researchers increasingly use predictions from pre-trained algorithms as substitutes for missing or unobserved data. Though appealing for financial and logistical reasons, using standard tools for inference can misrepresent the association between independent variables and the outcome of interest when the true, unobserved outcome is replaced by a predicted value. In this paper, we characterize the statistical challenges inherent to drawing inference with predicted data (IPD) and show that high predictive accuracy does not guarantee valid downstream inference. We show that all such failures reduce to statistical notions of (i) bias, when predictions systematically shift the estimand or distort relationships among variables, and (ii) variance, when uncertainty from the prediction model and the intrinsic variability of the true data are ignored. We then review recent methods for conducting IPD and discuss how this framework is deeply rooted in classical statistical theory. We then comment on some open questions and interesting avenues for future work in this area, and end with some comments on how to use predicted data in scientific studies that is both transparent and statistically principled.

推断方法预测数据统计偏差

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