English

PAC-Bayes unleashed: generalisation bounds with unbounded losses

Machine Learning 2021-12-16 v2 Machine Learning Statistics Theory Statistics Theory

Abstract

We present new PAC-Bayesian generalisation bounds for learning problems with unbounded loss functions. This extends the relevance and applicability of the PAC-Bayes learning framework, where most of the existing literature focuses on supervised learning problems with a bounded loss function (typically assumed to take values in the interval [0;1]). In order to relax this assumption, we propose a new notion called HYPE (standing for \emph{HYPothesis-dependent rangE}), which effectively allows the range of the loss to depend on each predictor. Based on this new notion we derive a novel PAC-Bayesian generalisation bound for unbounded loss functions, and we instantiate it on a linear regression problem. To make our theory usable by the largest audience possible, we include discussions on actual computation, practicality and limitations of our assumptions.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2006.07279,
  title  = {PAC-Bayes unleashed: generalisation bounds with unbounded losses},
  author = {Maxime Haddouche and Benjamin Guedj and Omar Rivasplata and John Shawe-Taylor},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2006.07279},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

24 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-23T16:16:52.704Z