arXiv:2608.13633physics.data-anastro-ph.CO2026-08被引 1

机器学习在物理领域面临未预料的模型偏差,需构建能容忍意外错误的稳健分析框架。

Unknown Unknowns: Model Misspecification in Machine Learning for Physics

  • 通过多维度诊断识别模型在真实数据中的非预期偏差
  • 提出迭代式更新机制,使模型逐步吸收非关注的错误而不扭曲关键发现
  • 强调分析者应主动怀疑自身模型,适合追求高可靠性科学发现的研究者

机器学习已成为解决粒子物理与天文学中逆问题的核心工具。模型在模拟数据上训练后应用于真实数据,引发根本性问题:不仅关乎拟合好坏,更在于是否存在未预见的错误——未知的未知。这种模型误设问题并非机器学习独有,在物理学中,误设有时正是新发现的信号;而在其他场景下,我们希望这些影响被吸收而不干扰测量结果。一个鲁棒的分析应能容纳非目标的误设,同时保持对真正感兴趣的信号敏感。机器学习既可能放大误设,也能提供应对新工具。本文探讨模型误设的挑战、检测诊断方法及缓解策略。单一诊断无法确证模型正确:检测与缓解构成循环迭代过程,需结合多种互补诊断,更新模型并重复验证。对未知未知的鲁棒性,最终不依赖单一技术,而是一种态度——主动质疑自身模型,并设计可承受意外错误的分析流程。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

Machine learning is now a central tool for solving inverse problems in particle physics and astronomy. Models are trained on simulation and deployed on real data, raising the question not just of whether they fit, but of whether they are wrong in ways we did not anticipate: the unknown unknowns. This challenge of model misspecification is not unique to machine learning. In physics, misspecification is sometimes exactly what we want to find: new discoveries appear as failures of existing models. At other times, we want such effects absorbed into the analysis without biasing the measurement. A robust analysis is one that absorbs the misspecifications we are not interested in, while preserving sensitivity to the ones we are. Machine learning can both amplify misspecification and provide new tools to address it. We discuss the challenges of model misspecification, diagnostics for detecting it, and strategies for mitigation. No single diagnostic can confirm that a model is correctly specified: detection and mitigation are two halves of an iterative loop, in which a battery of complementary diagnostics is applied, the model is updated, and the process repeated. Robustness against unknown unknowns is ultimately less about any single technique than about a disposition: a willingness to suspect one's own model, and to design analyses that can survive being wrong in ways one did not anticipate.

模型误设物理建模鲁棒分析

Thank you to arXiv for use of its open access interoperability. PaperDance 不是 arXiv 官方产品;中文卡片由大模型生成,请以原文为准。