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Blackwell's Approachability for Sequential Conformal Inference

Machine Learning 2025-10-20 v1 Machine Learning

Abstract

We study conformal inference in non-exchangeable environments through the lens of Blackwell's theory of approachability. We first recast adaptive conformal inference (ACI, Gibbs and Cand\`es, 2021) as a repeated two-player vector-valued finite game and characterize attainable coverage--efficiency tradeoffs. We then construct coverage and efficiency objectives under potential restrictions on the adversary's play, and design a calibration-based approachability strategy to achieve these goals. The resulting algorithm enjoys strong theoretical guarantees and provides practical insights, though its computational burden may limit deployment in practice.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2510.15824,
  title  = {Blackwell's Approachability for Sequential Conformal Inference},
  author = {Guillaume Principato and Gilles Stoltz},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2510.15824},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

25 pages, 0 figures

R2 v1 2026-07-01T06:43:39.259Z