解决模拟推断中机器学习导致的过度自信问题,提升科学推断可靠性。
Towards Reliable Simulation-based Inference
- 引入平衡机制,通过正则化降低神经比率估计等算法的过自信程度。
- 实验表明,平衡后的算法更接近校准或适度低估,避免错误结论。
- 提出面向模拟推断的贝叶斯神经网络先验,少样本下仍能缓解过自信。
科学知识通过观察世界、提出理论并用数据验证来发展。当理论表现为统计模型时,需借助统计分析检验和修正假设。本文聚焦基于科学模拟器的统计模型,探讨机器学习在其中的应用。第一部分实证表明,机器学习带来的近似会引入不确定性,可能导致过度自信的结论,并提出诊断标准。第二部分提出‘平衡’策略,通过正则化使模型减少过自信,适用于神经比率估计及其他算法,实验证明其结果更接近校准或适度低估。第三部分表明,使用专为模拟推断设计的贝叶斯神经网络先验,无需额外正则化,在少量训练样本下仍能有效缓解过自信,尤其适合计算成本高的模拟器。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Scientific knowledge expands by observing the world, hypothesizing some theories about it, and testing them against collected data. When those theories take the form of statistical models, statistical analyses are involved in the process of testing and refining scientific hypotheses. In this thesis, we focus on statistical models that take the form of scientific simulators and provide background about how machine learning can be used for statistical analyses in this context. The first part of this thesis is about showing empirically that performing statistical analyses with machine learning involves a degree of approximation. Specifically, all statistical analyses involve a level of uncertainty in the conclusions drawn, and we show that approximations can lead to overconfident conclusions. We draw caution regarding such overconfident conclusions and introduce a criterion to diagnose overconfident approximations. In the second part, we introduce balancing, a way to regularize machine learning models to reduce overconfidence and favor calibrated or underconfident approximations. Balancing is first introduced for neural ratio estimation algorithms and then extended to other algorithms. Intuition about why balancing leads to less overconfident solutions is provided, and it is shown empirically that balanced algorithms are often either close to calibrated or underconfident. The third part shows that Bayesian neural networks can also be used to mitigate the overconfidence of approximations. Unlike balancing, no regularization is required, and this solution can then work with few training samples and, hence, computationally expensive simulators. To that end, a new Bayesian neural network prior tailored for simulation-based inference is developed, and empirical results show a reduction in overconfidence compared to similar solutions without Bayesian neural networks.
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