arXiv:2604.18310stat.MLcs.LG2026-04被引 3

对称性可保证变分推断准确恢复特定统计量,无需模型完全正确。

Symmetry Guarantees Statistic Recovery in Variational Inference

论文配图:Symmetry Guarantees Statistic Recovery in Variational Inference
图 1 · 摘自论文原文
  • 利用目标分布与变分族的对称性,推导出统计量可恢复的条件。
  • 在位置-尺度族和球面分布上获得新理论保证,覆盖已有结果。
  • 为不同对称结构下的变分推断提供可复用的分析框架,适合理论研究者。

变分推断(VI)是现代机器学习中的核心工具,通过优化可处理分布族来近似难以计算的目标密度。由于变分族通常无法精确表示目标分布,对其近似质量的保证对于理解哪些性质能被忠实捕捉至关重要。近期工作发现,在目标分布与变分族具有对称性时,即使存在模型误设,某些统计量仍可被恢复。然而这些保证本质上依赖具体问题,难以揭示对称性如何促成统计量恢复的深层机制。本文发展了一套通用理论,阐明何时变分最小值继承目标分布的对称性,并在何种条件下可唯一确定可观测统计量。我们统一了现有成果,证明位置-尺度族中的已知恢复保证是本理论的特例,并将框架应用于球面上的分布,为von Mises-Fisher族中的方向统计量提供了全新保证。这些结果共同构成一套模块化蓝图,可用于扩展多种对称设置下的变分推断恢复保证。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Variational inference (VI) is a central tool in modern machine learning, used to approximate an intractable target density by optimising over a tractable family of distributions. As the variational family cannot typically represent the target exactly, guarantees on the quality of the resulting approximation are crucial for understanding which of its properties VI can faithfully capture. Recent work has identified instances in which symmetries of the target and the variational family enable the recovery of certain statistics, even under model misspecification. However, these guarantees are inherently problem-specific and offer little insight into the fundamental mechanism by which symmetry forces statistic recovery. In this paper, we overcome this limitation by developing a general theory of symmetry-induced statistic recovery in variational inference. First, we characterise when variational minimisers inherit the symmetries of the target and establish conditions under which these pin down identifiable statistics. Second, we unify existing results by showing that previously known statistic recovery guarantees in location-scale families arise as special cases of our theory. Third, we apply our framework to distributions on the sphere to obtain novel guarantees for directional statistics in von Mises-Fisher families. Together, these results provide a modular blueprint for deriving new recovery guarantees for VI in a broad range of symmetry settings.

变分推断对称性统计恢复理论分析

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