InfoNet: Neural Estimation of Mutual Information without Test-Time Optimization

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Hu, Zhengyang, Kang, Song, Zeng, Qunsong, Huang, Kaibin, Yang, Yanchao
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Hu, Zhengyang
Kang, Song
Zeng, Qunsong
Huang, Kaibin
Yang, Yanchao
author_facet Hu, Zhengyang
Kang, Song
Zeng, Qunsong
Huang, Kaibin
Yang, Yanchao
contents Estimating mutual correlations between random variables or data streams is essential for intelligent behavior and decision-making. As a fundamental quantity for measuring statistical relationships, mutual information has been extensively studied and utilized for its generality and equitability. However, existing methods often lack the efficiency needed for real-time applications, such as test-time optimization of a neural network, or the differentiability required for end-to-end learning, like histograms. We introduce a neural network called InfoNet, which directly outputs mutual information estimations of data streams by leveraging the attention mechanism and the computational efficiency of deep learning infrastructures. By maximizing a dual formulation of mutual information through large-scale simulated training, our approach circumvents time-consuming test-time optimization and offers generalization ability. We evaluate the effectiveness and generalization of our proposed mutual information estimation scheme on various families of distributions and applications. Our results demonstrate that InfoNet and its training process provide a graceful efficiency-accuracy trade-off and order-preserving properties. We will make the code and models available as a comprehensive toolbox to facilitate studies in different fields requiring real-time mutual information estimation.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2402_10158
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle InfoNet: Neural Estimation of Mutual Information without Test-Time Optimization
Hu, Zhengyang
Kang, Song
Zeng, Qunsong
Huang, Kaibin
Yang, Yanchao
Information Theory
Estimating mutual correlations between random variables or data streams is essential for intelligent behavior and decision-making. As a fundamental quantity for measuring statistical relationships, mutual information has been extensively studied and utilized for its generality and equitability. However, existing methods often lack the efficiency needed for real-time applications, such as test-time optimization of a neural network, or the differentiability required for end-to-end learning, like histograms. We introduce a neural network called InfoNet, which directly outputs mutual information estimations of data streams by leveraging the attention mechanism and the computational efficiency of deep learning infrastructures. By maximizing a dual formulation of mutual information through large-scale simulated training, our approach circumvents time-consuming test-time optimization and offers generalization ability. We evaluate the effectiveness and generalization of our proposed mutual information estimation scheme on various families of distributions and applications. Our results demonstrate that InfoNet and its training process provide a graceful efficiency-accuracy trade-off and order-preserving properties. We will make the code and models available as a comprehensive toolbox to facilitate studies in different fields requiring real-time mutual information estimation.
title InfoNet: Neural Estimation of Mutual Information without Test-Time Optimization
topic Information Theory
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.10158