English

An approach to Fisher-Rao metric for infinite dimensional non-parametric information geometry

Machine Learning 2026-01-08 v2 Machine Learning

Abstract

Being infinite dimensional, non-parametric information geometry has long faced an "intractability barrier" due to the fact that the Fisher-Rao metric is now a functional incurring difficulties in defining its inverse. This paper introduces a novel framework to resolve the intractability with an Orthogonal Decomposition of the Tangent Space (TfM=SST_fM = S \oplus S^{\perp}), where SS represents an observable covariate subspace. Through the decomposition, we derive the Covariate Fisher Information Matrix (cFIM), denoted as Gf{\bf G}_f, which is a finite-dimensional and computable representative of information extractable from the manifold's geometry. Significantly, by proving the Trace Theorem: HG(f)=Tr(Gf)H_G(f) = \text{Tr}({\bf G}_f), we establish a rigorous foundation for the G-entropy previously introduced by us, thereby identifying it as a fundamental geometric invariant representing the total explainable statistical information captured by the probability distribution associated with a model. Furthermore, we establish a link between Gf{\bf G}_f and the second derivative (i.e. the curvature) of the KL-divergence, leading to the notion of Covariate Cram\'er-Rao Lower Bound(CRLB). We demonstrate that Gf{\bf G}_f is congruent to the Efficient Fisher Information Matrix, thereby providing fundamental limits of variance for semi-parametric estimators. Finally, we apply our geometric framework to the Manifold Hypothesis, lifting the latter from a heuristic assumption into a testable condition of rank-deficiency within the cFIM. By defining the Information Capture Ratio, we provide a rigorous method for estimating intrinsic dimensionality in high-dimensional data. In short, our work bridges the gap between abstract information geometry and the demand of explainable AI, by providing a tractable path for assessing the statistical coverage and the efficiency of non-parametric models.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2512.21451,
  title  = {An approach to Fisher-Rao metric for infinite dimensional non-parametric information geometry},
  author = {Bing Cheng and Howell Tong},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.21451},
  year   = {2026}
}