Generating Less Certain Adversarial Examples Improves Robust Generalization

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Zhang, Minxing, Backes, Michael, Zhang, Xiao
Format: Preprint
Published: 2023
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author Zhang, Minxing
Backes, Michael
Zhang, Xiao
author_facet Zhang, Minxing
Backes, Michael
Zhang, Xiao
contents This paper revisits the robust overfitting phenomenon of adversarial training. Observing that models with better robust generalization performance are less certain in predicting adversarially generated training inputs, we argue that overconfidence in predicting adversarial examples is a potential cause. Therefore, we hypothesize that generating less certain adversarial examples improves robust generalization, and propose a formal definition of adversarial certainty that captures the variance of the model's predicted logits on adversarial examples. Our theoretical analysis of synthetic distributions characterizes the connection between adversarial certainty and robust generalization. Accordingly, built upon the notion of adversarial certainty, we develop a general method to search for models that can generate training-time adversarial inputs with reduced certainty, while maintaining the model's capability in distinguishing adversarial examples. Extensive experiments on image benchmarks demonstrate that our method effectively learns models with consistently improved robustness and mitigates robust overfitting, confirming the importance of generating less certain adversarial examples for robust generalization. Our implementations are available as open-source code at: https://github.com/TrustMLRG/AdvCertainty.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2310_04539
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Generating Less Certain Adversarial Examples Improves Robust Generalization
Zhang, Minxing
Backes, Michael
Zhang, Xiao
Machine Learning
This paper revisits the robust overfitting phenomenon of adversarial training. Observing that models with better robust generalization performance are less certain in predicting adversarially generated training inputs, we argue that overconfidence in predicting adversarial examples is a potential cause. Therefore, we hypothesize that generating less certain adversarial examples improves robust generalization, and propose a formal definition of adversarial certainty that captures the variance of the model's predicted logits on adversarial examples. Our theoretical analysis of synthetic distributions characterizes the connection between adversarial certainty and robust generalization. Accordingly, built upon the notion of adversarial certainty, we develop a general method to search for models that can generate training-time adversarial inputs with reduced certainty, while maintaining the model's capability in distinguishing adversarial examples. Extensive experiments on image benchmarks demonstrate that our method effectively learns models with consistently improved robustness and mitigates robust overfitting, confirming the importance of generating less certain adversarial examples for robust generalization. Our implementations are available as open-source code at: https://github.com/TrustMLRG/AdvCertainty.
title Generating Less Certain Adversarial Examples Improves Robust Generalization
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.04539