Is Epistemic Uncertainty Faithfully Represented by Evidential Deep Learning Methods?

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Jürgens, Mira, Meinert, Nis, Bengs, Viktor, Hüllermeier, Eyke, Waegeman, Willem
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2024
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author Jürgens, Mira
Meinert, Nis
Bengs, Viktor
Hüllermeier, Eyke
Waegeman, Willem
author_facet Jürgens, Mira
Meinert, Nis
Bengs, Viktor
Hüllermeier, Eyke
Waegeman, Willem
contents Trustworthy ML systems should not only return accurate predictions, but also a reliable representation of their uncertainty. Bayesian methods are commonly used to quantify both aleatoric and epistemic uncertainty, but alternative approaches, such as evidential deep learning methods, have become popular in recent years. The latter group of methods in essence extends empirical risk minimization (ERM) for predicting second-order probability distributions over outcomes, from which measures of epistemic (and aleatoric) uncertainty can be extracted. This paper presents novel theoretical insights of evidential deep learning, highlighting the difficulties in optimizing second-order loss functions and interpreting the resulting epistemic uncertainty measures. With a systematic setup that covers a wide range of approaches for classification, regression and counts, it provides novel insights into issues of identifiability and convergence in second-order loss minimization, and the relative (rather than absolute) nature of epistemic uncertainty measures.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2402_09056
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Is Epistemic Uncertainty Faithfully Represented by Evidential Deep Learning Methods?
Jürgens, Mira
Meinert, Nis
Bengs, Viktor
Hüllermeier, Eyke
Waegeman, Willem
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
Trustworthy ML systems should not only return accurate predictions, but also a reliable representation of their uncertainty. Bayesian methods are commonly used to quantify both aleatoric and epistemic uncertainty, but alternative approaches, such as evidential deep learning methods, have become popular in recent years. The latter group of methods in essence extends empirical risk minimization (ERM) for predicting second-order probability distributions over outcomes, from which measures of epistemic (and aleatoric) uncertainty can be extracted. This paper presents novel theoretical insights of evidential deep learning, highlighting the difficulties in optimizing second-order loss functions and interpreting the resulting epistemic uncertainty measures. With a systematic setup that covers a wide range of approaches for classification, regression and counts, it provides novel insights into issues of identifiability and convergence in second-order loss minimization, and the relative (rather than absolute) nature of epistemic uncertainty measures.
title Is Epistemic Uncertainty Faithfully Represented by Evidential Deep Learning Methods?
topic Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.09056