提出可保证全参数单调性的KAN模型,兼具理论严谨与实际性能。
Monotonic Kolmogorov-Arnold Networks: A Theoretical and Empirical Study of Monotonicity as an Inductive Bias

- 通过指数重参数化实现所有参数的硬单调性约束
- 理论证明单调结构可低至原规模两倍内实现
- 首个兼具硬单调性与逐边透明性的KAN方法
单调性是神经网络长期存在的结构先验,适用于输出随输入单调变化的表格、科学和经济场景。现有方法基于MLP或流模型,缺乏逐边功能透明性;现有唯一支持单调性的KAN变体MonoKAN仅对部分参数施加约束,且需投影式训练。本文提出MKAN,通过指数重参数化B样条系数、正边权和单调基激活函数,确保所有参数值下均满足硬单调性,训练可简化为标准无约束梯度下降。核心理论贡献为一个‘表示成本’定理:任意C^K(K>0)特征提取器若诱导球形语义邻域划分,则其等价邻域结构可被单调实现,所需规模N' = N* + k ≤ 2N*,其中k为原结构中非单调坐标数。该界与架构无关,为单调编码器提供原则性设计准则。实验表明,MKAN在SMM/ICML-2024基准上性能媲美最先进单调神经网络,且是唯一同时具备硬单调性与KAN逐边透明性的方法;2N*预测在四个真实数据集的自监督特征尺寸扫描中得到验证;在受控单调生成数据集上,MKAN恢复真实因子的斯皮尔曼相关性显著优于KAN、MLP与线性基线。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Monotonicity has been a long-running architectural inductive bias for neural networks, motivated by tabular, scientific, and economic settings where outputs are known to respond monotonically to certain inputs. Existing approaches are MLP- or flow-based and lack per-edge functional transparency; the only Kolmogorov--Arnold Network (KAN) variant with monotonicity, MonoKAN, enforces the constraint only on a restricted parameter subset and requires a projection-style training procedure. We close this gap with \textbf{MKAN}, a KAN with hard monotonicity guaranteed for \emph{all} parameter values via exponential reparameterization of B-spline coefficients, positive edge weights, and a monotone base activation. Training reduces to standard unconstrained gradient descent. Our headline theoretical contribution is a \emph{representation-cost} theorem: any $C^K, K >0$ feature extractor inducing a ball-shaped semantic-neighborhood partition admits a monotone realization of the equivalent neighborhood structure at $N' = N^* + k \le 2N^*$, where $k$ is the number of non-monotone coordinates of the original. The bound is architecture-agnostic and gives a principled sizing rule for monotone encoders. Empirically, MKAN is competitive with state-of-the-art monotone NNs on the SMM/ICML-2024 benchmark while being the only method that combines hard unconstrained monotonicity with KAN's per-edge functional transparency; the $2N^*$ prediction is validated in a self-supervised feature-size sweep on four real datasets, and on a controlled monotone-generative dataset MKAN recovers ground-truth factors with substantially higher Spearman alignment than KAN, MLP, and linear baselines.
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