A Theory of Optimistically Universal Online Learnability for General Concept Classes

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Hanneke, Steve, Wang, Hongao
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Hanneke, Steve
Wang, Hongao
author_facet Hanneke, Steve
Wang, Hongao
contents We provide a full characterization of the concept classes that are optimistically universally online learnable with $\{0, 1\}$ labels. The notion of optimistically universal online learning was defined in [Hanneke, 2021] in order to understand learnability under minimal assumptions. In this paper, following the philosophy behind that work, we investigate two questions, namely, for every concept class: (1) What are the minimal assumptions on the data process admitting online learnability? (2) Is there a learning algorithm which succeeds under every data process satisfying the minimal assumptions? Such an algorithm is said to be optimistically universal for the given concept class. We resolve both of these questions for all concept classes, and moreover, as part of our solution, we design general learning algorithms for each case. Finally, we extend these algorithms and results to the agnostic case, showing an equivalence between the minimal assumptions on the data process for learnability in the agnostic and realizable cases, for every concept class, as well as the equivalence of optimistically universal learnability.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2501_08551
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle A Theory of Optimistically Universal Online Learnability for General Concept Classes
Hanneke, Steve
Wang, Hongao
Machine Learning
We provide a full characterization of the concept classes that are optimistically universally online learnable with $\{0, 1\}$ labels. The notion of optimistically universal online learning was defined in [Hanneke, 2021] in order to understand learnability under minimal assumptions. In this paper, following the philosophy behind that work, we investigate two questions, namely, for every concept class: (1) What are the minimal assumptions on the data process admitting online learnability? (2) Is there a learning algorithm which succeeds under every data process satisfying the minimal assumptions? Such an algorithm is said to be optimistically universal for the given concept class. We resolve both of these questions for all concept classes, and moreover, as part of our solution, we design general learning algorithms for each case. Finally, we extend these algorithms and results to the agnostic case, showing an equivalence between the minimal assumptions on the data process for learnability in the agnostic and realizable cases, for every concept class, as well as the equivalence of optimistically universal learnability.
title A Theory of Optimistically Universal Online Learnability for General Concept Classes
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.08551