Approximately Equivariant Neural Processes

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Ashman, Matthew, Diaconu, Cristiana, Weller, Adrian, Bruinsma, Wessel, Turner, Richard E.
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2024
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author Ashman, Matthew
Diaconu, Cristiana
Weller, Adrian
Bruinsma, Wessel
Turner, Richard E.
author_facet Ashman, Matthew
Diaconu, Cristiana
Weller, Adrian
Bruinsma, Wessel
Turner, Richard E.
contents Equivariant deep learning architectures exploit symmetries in learning problems to improve the sample efficiency of neural-network-based models and their ability to generalise. However, when modelling real-world data, learning problems are often not exactly equivariant, but only approximately. For example, when estimating the global temperature field from weather station observations, local topographical features like mountains break translation equivariance. In these scenarios, it is desirable to construct architectures that can flexibly depart from exact equivariance in a data-driven way. Current approaches to achieving this cannot usually be applied out-of-the-box to any architecture and symmetry group. In this paper, we develop a general approach to achieving this using existing equivariant architectures. Our approach is agnostic to both the choice of symmetry group and model architecture, making it widely applicable. We consider the use of approximately equivariant architectures in neural processes (NPs), a popular family of meta-learning models. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach on a number of synthetic and real-world regression experiments, showing that approximately equivariant NP models can outperform both their non-equivariant and strictly equivariant counterparts.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2406_13488
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Approximately Equivariant Neural Processes
Ashman, Matthew
Diaconu, Cristiana
Weller, Adrian
Bruinsma, Wessel
Turner, Richard E.
Machine Learning
Equivariant deep learning architectures exploit symmetries in learning problems to improve the sample efficiency of neural-network-based models and their ability to generalise. However, when modelling real-world data, learning problems are often not exactly equivariant, but only approximately. For example, when estimating the global temperature field from weather station observations, local topographical features like mountains break translation equivariance. In these scenarios, it is desirable to construct architectures that can flexibly depart from exact equivariance in a data-driven way. Current approaches to achieving this cannot usually be applied out-of-the-box to any architecture and symmetry group. In this paper, we develop a general approach to achieving this using existing equivariant architectures. Our approach is agnostic to both the choice of symmetry group and model architecture, making it widely applicable. We consider the use of approximately equivariant architectures in neural processes (NPs), a popular family of meta-learning models. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach on a number of synthetic and real-world regression experiments, showing that approximately equivariant NP models can outperform both their non-equivariant and strictly equivariant counterparts.
title Approximately Equivariant Neural Processes
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.13488