Bayesian Double Descent

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Polson, Nick, Sokolov, Vadim
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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author Polson, Nick
Sokolov, Vadim
author_facet Polson, Nick
Sokolov, Vadim
contents Double descent is a phenomenon of over-parameterized statistical models such as deep neural networks which have a re-descending property in their risk function. As the complexity of the model increases, risk exhibits a U-shaped region due to the traditional bias-variance trade-off, then as the number of parameters equals the number of observations and the model becomes one of interpolation where the risk can be unbounded and finally, in the over-parameterized region, it re-descends -- the double descent effect. Our goal is to show that this has a natural Bayesian interpretation. We also show that this is not in conflict with the traditional Occam's razor -- simpler models are preferred to complex ones, all else being equal. Our theoretical foundations use Bayesian model selection, the Dickey-Savage density ratio, and connect generalized ridge regression and global-local shrinkage methods with double descent. We illustrate our approach for high dimensional neural networks and provide detailed treatments of infinite Gaussian means models and non-parametric regression. Finally, we conclude with directions for future research.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_07338
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Bayesian Double Descent
Polson, Nick
Sokolov, Vadim
Machine Learning
Computation
Double descent is a phenomenon of over-parameterized statistical models such as deep neural networks which have a re-descending property in their risk function. As the complexity of the model increases, risk exhibits a U-shaped region due to the traditional bias-variance trade-off, then as the number of parameters equals the number of observations and the model becomes one of interpolation where the risk can be unbounded and finally, in the over-parameterized region, it re-descends -- the double descent effect. Our goal is to show that this has a natural Bayesian interpretation. We also show that this is not in conflict with the traditional Occam's razor -- simpler models are preferred to complex ones, all else being equal. Our theoretical foundations use Bayesian model selection, the Dickey-Savage density ratio, and connect generalized ridge regression and global-local shrinkage methods with double descent. We illustrate our approach for high dimensional neural networks and provide detailed treatments of infinite Gaussian means models and non-parametric regression. Finally, we conclude with directions for future research.
title Bayesian Double Descent
topic Machine Learning
Computation
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.07338