Drift-Resilient TabPFN: In-Context Learning Temporal Distribution Shifts on Tabular Data

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Helli, Kai, Schnurr, David, Hollmann, Noah, Müller, Samuel, Hutter, Frank
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
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author Helli, Kai
Schnurr, David
Hollmann, Noah
Müller, Samuel
Hutter, Frank
author_facet Helli, Kai
Schnurr, David
Hollmann, Noah
Müller, Samuel
Hutter, Frank
contents While most ML models expect independent and identically distributed data, this assumption is often violated in real-world scenarios due to distribution shifts, resulting in the degradation of machine learning model performance. Until now, no tabular method has consistently outperformed classical supervised learning, which ignores these shifts. To address temporal distribution shifts, we present Drift-Resilient TabPFN, a fresh approach based on In-Context Learning with a Prior-Data Fitted Network that learns the learning algorithm itself: it accepts the entire training dataset as input and makes predictions on the test set in a single forward pass. Specifically, it learns to approximate Bayesian inference on synthetic datasets drawn from a prior that specifies the model's inductive bias. This prior is based on structural causal models (SCM), which gradually shift over time. To model shifts of these causal models, we use a secondary SCM, that specifies changes in the primary model parameters. The resulting Drift-Resilient TabPFN can be applied to unseen data, runs in seconds on small to moderately sized datasets and needs no hyperparameter tuning. Comprehensive evaluations across 18 synthetic and real-world datasets demonstrate large performance improvements over a wide range of baselines, such as XGB, CatBoost, TabPFN, and applicable methods featured in the Wild-Time benchmark. Compared to the strongest baselines, it improves accuracy from 0.688 to 0.744 and ROC AUC from 0.786 to 0.832 while maintaining stronger calibration. This approach could serve as significant groundwork for further research on out-of-distribution prediction.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2411_10634
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Drift-Resilient TabPFN: In-Context Learning Temporal Distribution Shifts on Tabular Data
Helli, Kai
Schnurr, David
Hollmann, Noah
Müller, Samuel
Hutter, Frank
Machine Learning
68T07
I.2.6
While most ML models expect independent and identically distributed data, this assumption is often violated in real-world scenarios due to distribution shifts, resulting in the degradation of machine learning model performance. Until now, no tabular method has consistently outperformed classical supervised learning, which ignores these shifts. To address temporal distribution shifts, we present Drift-Resilient TabPFN, a fresh approach based on In-Context Learning with a Prior-Data Fitted Network that learns the learning algorithm itself: it accepts the entire training dataset as input and makes predictions on the test set in a single forward pass. Specifically, it learns to approximate Bayesian inference on synthetic datasets drawn from a prior that specifies the model's inductive bias. This prior is based on structural causal models (SCM), which gradually shift over time. To model shifts of these causal models, we use a secondary SCM, that specifies changes in the primary model parameters. The resulting Drift-Resilient TabPFN can be applied to unseen data, runs in seconds on small to moderately sized datasets and needs no hyperparameter tuning. Comprehensive evaluations across 18 synthetic and real-world datasets demonstrate large performance improvements over a wide range of baselines, such as XGB, CatBoost, TabPFN, and applicable methods featured in the Wild-Time benchmark. Compared to the strongest baselines, it improves accuracy from 0.688 to 0.744 and ROC AUC from 0.786 to 0.832 while maintaining stronger calibration. This approach could serve as significant groundwork for further research on out-of-distribution prediction.
title Drift-Resilient TabPFN: In-Context Learning Temporal Distribution Shifts on Tabular Data
topic Machine Learning
68T07
I.2.6
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.10634