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Many machine learning and optimization algorithms can be cast as instances of stochastic approximation (SA). The convergence rate of these algorithms is known to be slow, with the optimal mean squared error (MSE) of order $O(n^{-1})$. In…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-09-13 Caio Kalil Lauand , Sean Meyn

This paper argues that training AI systems with absolute constraints -- which forbid certain acts irrespective of the amount of value they might produce -- may make considerable progress on many AI safety problems in principle. First, it…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2023-07-21 Mitchell Barrington

Generalization in deep learning has been the topic of much recent theoretical and empirical research. Here we introduce desiderata for techniques that predict generalization errors for deep learning models in supervised learning. Such…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2020-12-10 Guillermo Valle-Pérez , Ard A. Louis

We apply the PAC-Bayes theory to the setting of learning-to-optimize. To the best of our knowledge, we present the first framework to learn optimization algorithms with provable generalization guarantees (PAC-bounds) and explicit trade-off…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-02-16 Michael Sucker , Peter Ochs

In this work, we study the generalization capability of algorithms from an information-theoretic perspective. It has been shown that the expected generalization error of an algorithm is bounded from above by a function of the relative…

Information Theory · Computer Science 2021-10-27 Borja Rodríguez-Gálvez , Germán Bassi , Mikael Skoglund

Inverse optimization (IO) seeks to infer the parameters of a decision-maker's objective from observed context--action data. We study noiseless IO, where demonstrations are generated by a ground-truth objective. We provide a high-probability…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2026-05-12 Pouria Fatemi , Hoomaan Maskan , Suvrit Sra , Peyman Mohajerin Esfahani

Systematic Generalization refers to a learning algorithm's ability to extrapolate learned behavior to unseen situations that are distinct but semantically similar to its training data. As shown in recent work, state-of-the-art deep learning…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2020-10-06 Tong Gao , Qi Huang , Raymond J. Mooney

The field of AI alignment aims to steer AI systems toward human goals, preferences, and ethical principles. Its contributions have been instrumental for improving the output quality, safety, and trustworthiness of today's AI models. This…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2024-11-26 Robert West , Roland Aydin

Optimization and generalization are two essential aspects of statistical machine learning. In this paper, we propose a framework to connect optimization with generalization by analyzing the generalization error based on the optimization…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2022-10-13 Fusheng Liu , Haizhao Yang , Soufiane Hayou , Qianxiao Li

We examine the problem of smoothed online optimization, where a decision maker must sequentially choose points in a normed vector space to minimize the sum of per-round, non-convex hitting costs and the costs of switching decisions between…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-10-28 Daan Rutten , Nico Christianson , Debankur Mukherjee , Adam Wierman

Common practice in modern machine learning involves fitting a large number of parameters relative to the number of observations. These overparameterized models can exhibit surprising generalization behavior, e.g., ``double descent'' in the…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2024-10-03 Pratik Patil , Jin-Hong Du , Ryan J. Tibshirani

This paper presents the generalized optimal sub-pattern assignment (GOSPA) metric on the space of finite sets of targets. Compared to the well-established optimal sub-pattern assignment (OSPA) metric, GOSPA is unnormalized as a function of…

Systems and Control · Computer Science 2018-09-13 Abu Sajana Rahmathullah , Ángel F. García-Fernández , Lennart Svensson

Overfitting and generalization is an important concept in Machine Learning as only models that generalize are interesting for general applications. Yet some students have trouble learning this important concept through lectures and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-09-08 Matias Valdenegro-Toro , Matthia Sabatelli

When there exists uncertainty, AI machines are designed to make decisions so as to reach the best expected outcomes. Expectations are based on true facts about the objective environment the machines interact with, and those facts can be…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-07-09 Jinsook Kim

In this work, we study out-of-distribution (OOD) generalization in meta-reinforcement learning from an information-theoretic perspective. We begin by establishing OOD generalization bounds for meta-supervised learning under two distinct…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2026-04-07 Xingtu Liu

Can AI agents deal with hard choices -- cases where options are incommensurable because multiple objectives are pursued simultaneously? Adopting a technologically engaged approach distinct from existing philosophical literature, I submit…

Artificial Intelligence · Computer Science 2026-04-21 Kangyu Wang

In most machine learning applications, classification accuracy is not the primary metric of interest. Binary classifiers which face class imbalance are often evaluated by the $F_\beta$ score, area under the precision-recall curve, Precision…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2018-03-02 Alan Mackey , Xiyang Luo , Elad Eban

Algorithm selection, aiming to identify the best algorithm for a given problem, plays a pivotal role in continuous black-box optimization. A common approach involves representing optimization functions using a set of features, which are…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-05-13 Gašper Petelin , Gjorgjina Cenikj

In adversarial machine learning, deep neural networks can fit the adversarial examples on the training dataset but have poor generalization ability on the test set. This phenomenon is called robust overfitting, and it can be observed when…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-11-01 Jiancong Xiao , Yanbo Fan , Ruoyu Sun , Jue Wang , Zhi-Quan Luo

Direct Alignment Algorithms (DAAs), such as Direct Preference Optimisation (DPO) and Identity Preference Optimisation (IPO), have emerged as alternatives to online Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF) algorithms such as…

Computation and Language · Computer Science 2024-10-21 Zhengyan Shi , Sander Land , Acyr Locatelli , Matthieu Geist , Max Bartolo