Strategic Classification with Non-Linear Classifiers

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Trachtenberg, Benyamin, Rosenfeld, Nir
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Trachtenberg, Benyamin
Rosenfeld, Nir
author_facet Trachtenberg, Benyamin
Rosenfeld, Nir
contents In strategic classification, the standard supervised learning setting is extended to support the notion of strategic user behavior in the form of costly feature manipulations made in response to a classifier. While standard learning supports a broad range of model classes, the study of strategic classification has, so far, been dedicated mostly to linear classifiers. This work aims to expand the horizon by exploring how strategic behavior manifests under non-linear classifiers and what this implies for learning. We take a bottom-up approach showing how non-linearity affects decision boundary points, classifier expressivity, and model class complexity. Our results show how, unlike the linear case, strategic behavior may either increase or decrease effective class complexity, and that the complexity decrease may be arbitrarily large. Another key finding is that universal approximators (e.g., neural nets) are no longer universal once the environment is strategic. We demonstrate empirically how this can create performance gaps even on an unrestricted model class.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_23443
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Strategic Classification with Non-Linear Classifiers
Trachtenberg, Benyamin
Rosenfeld, Nir
Machine Learning
In strategic classification, the standard supervised learning setting is extended to support the notion of strategic user behavior in the form of costly feature manipulations made in response to a classifier. While standard learning supports a broad range of model classes, the study of strategic classification has, so far, been dedicated mostly to linear classifiers. This work aims to expand the horizon by exploring how strategic behavior manifests under non-linear classifiers and what this implies for learning. We take a bottom-up approach showing how non-linearity affects decision boundary points, classifier expressivity, and model class complexity. Our results show how, unlike the linear case, strategic behavior may either increase or decrease effective class complexity, and that the complexity decrease may be arbitrarily large. Another key finding is that universal approximators (e.g., neural nets) are no longer universal once the environment is strategic. We demonstrate empirically how this can create performance gaps even on an unrestricted model class.
title Strategic Classification with Non-Linear Classifiers
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.23443