Dictionary Learning: The Complexity of Learning Sparse Superposed Features with Feedback

Fuente: arXiv
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Autor principal: Kumar, Akash
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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author Kumar, Akash
author_facet Kumar, Akash
contents The success of deep networks is crucially attributed to their ability to capture latent features within a representation space. In this work, we investigate whether the underlying learned features of a model can be efficiently retrieved through feedback from an agent, such as a large language model (LLM), in the form of relative \tt{triplet comparisons}. These features may represent various constructs, including dictionaries in LLMs or a covariance matrix of Mahalanobis distances. We analyze the feedback complexity associated with learning a feature matrix in sparse settings. Our results establish tight bounds when the agent is permitted to construct activations and demonstrate strong upper bounds in sparse scenarios when the agent's feedback is limited to distributional information. We validate our theoretical findings through experiments on two distinct applications: feature recovery from Recursive Feature Machines and dictionary extraction from sparse autoencoders trained on Large Language Models.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_05407
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Dictionary Learning: The Complexity of Learning Sparse Superposed Features with Feedback
Kumar, Akash
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
The success of deep networks is crucially attributed to their ability to capture latent features within a representation space. In this work, we investigate whether the underlying learned features of a model can be efficiently retrieved through feedback from an agent, such as a large language model (LLM), in the form of relative \tt{triplet comparisons}. These features may represent various constructs, including dictionaries in LLMs or a covariance matrix of Mahalanobis distances. We analyze the feedback complexity associated with learning a feature matrix in sparse settings. Our results establish tight bounds when the agent is permitted to construct activations and demonstrate strong upper bounds in sparse scenarios when the agent's feedback is limited to distributional information. We validate our theoretical findings through experiments on two distinct applications: feature recovery from Recursive Feature Machines and dictionary extraction from sparse autoencoders trained on Large Language Models.
title Dictionary Learning: The Complexity of Learning Sparse Superposed Features with Feedback
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.05407