Suitability Filter: A Statistical Framework for Classifier Evaluation in Real-World Deployment Settings

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Pouget, Angéline, Yaghini, Mohammad, Rabanser, Stephan, Papernot, Nicolas
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Pouget, Angéline
Yaghini, Mohammad
Rabanser, Stephan
Papernot, Nicolas
author_facet Pouget, Angéline
Yaghini, Mohammad
Rabanser, Stephan
Papernot, Nicolas
contents Deploying machine learning models in safety-critical domains poses a key challenge: ensuring reliable model performance on downstream user data without access to ground truth labels for direct validation. We propose the suitability filter, a novel framework designed to detect performance deterioration by utilizing suitability signals -- model output features that are sensitive to covariate shifts and indicative of potential prediction errors. The suitability filter evaluates whether classifier accuracy on unlabeled user data shows significant degradation compared to the accuracy measured on the labeled test dataset. Specifically, it ensures that this degradation does not exceed a pre-specified margin, which represents the maximum acceptable drop in accuracy. To achieve reliable performance evaluation, we aggregate suitability signals for both test and user data and compare these empirical distributions using statistical hypothesis testing, thus providing insights into decision uncertainty. Our modular method adapts to various models and domains. Empirical evaluations across different classification tasks demonstrate that the suitability filter reliably detects performance deviations due to covariate shift. This enables proactive mitigation of potential failures in high-stakes applications.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_22356
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Suitability Filter: A Statistical Framework for Classifier Evaluation in Real-World Deployment Settings
Pouget, Angéline
Yaghini, Mohammad
Rabanser, Stephan
Papernot, Nicolas
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Computers and Society
Deploying machine learning models in safety-critical domains poses a key challenge: ensuring reliable model performance on downstream user data without access to ground truth labels for direct validation. We propose the suitability filter, a novel framework designed to detect performance deterioration by utilizing suitability signals -- model output features that are sensitive to covariate shifts and indicative of potential prediction errors. The suitability filter evaluates whether classifier accuracy on unlabeled user data shows significant degradation compared to the accuracy measured on the labeled test dataset. Specifically, it ensures that this degradation does not exceed a pre-specified margin, which represents the maximum acceptable drop in accuracy. To achieve reliable performance evaluation, we aggregate suitability signals for both test and user data and compare these empirical distributions using statistical hypothesis testing, thus providing insights into decision uncertainty. Our modular method adapts to various models and domains. Empirical evaluations across different classification tasks demonstrate that the suitability filter reliably detects performance deviations due to covariate shift. This enables proactive mitigation of potential failures in high-stakes applications.
title Suitability Filter: A Statistical Framework for Classifier Evaluation in Real-World Deployment Settings
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Computers and Society
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.22356