Product distribution learning with imperfect advice
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arXiv
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| Auteurs principaux: | , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Publié: |
2025
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| _version_ | 1866918200709480448 |
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| author | Bhattacharyya, Arnab Choo, Davin John, Philips George Gouleakis, Themis |
| author_facet | Bhattacharyya, Arnab Choo, Davin John, Philips George Gouleakis, Themis |
| contents | Given i.i.d.~samples from an unknown distribution $P$, the goal of distribution learning is to recover the parameters of a distribution that is close to $P$. When $P$ belongs to the class of product distributions on the Boolean hypercube $\{0,1\}^d$, it is known that $Ω(d/\varepsilon^2)$ samples are necessary to learn $P$ within total variation (TV) distance $\varepsilon$. We revisit this problem when the learner is also given as advice the parameters of a product distribution $Q$. We show that there is an efficient algorithm to learn $P$ within TV distance $\varepsilon$ that has sample complexity $\tilde{O}(d^{1-η}/\varepsilon^2)$, if $\|\mathbf{p} - \mathbf{q}\|_1 < \varepsilon d^{0.5 - Ω(η)}$. Here, $\mathbf{p}$ and $\mathbf{q}$ are the mean vectors of $P$ and $Q$ respectively, and no bound on $\|\mathbf{p} - \mathbf{q}\|_1$ is known to the algorithm a priori. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_10366 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Product distribution learning with imperfect advice Bhattacharyya, Arnab Choo, Davin John, Philips George Gouleakis, Themis Machine Learning Given i.i.d.~samples from an unknown distribution $P$, the goal of distribution learning is to recover the parameters of a distribution that is close to $P$. When $P$ belongs to the class of product distributions on the Boolean hypercube $\{0,1\}^d$, it is known that $Ω(d/\varepsilon^2)$ samples are necessary to learn $P$ within total variation (TV) distance $\varepsilon$. We revisit this problem when the learner is also given as advice the parameters of a product distribution $Q$. We show that there is an efficient algorithm to learn $P$ within TV distance $\varepsilon$ that has sample complexity $\tilde{O}(d^{1-η}/\varepsilon^2)$, if $\|\mathbf{p} - \mathbf{q}\|_1 < \varepsilon d^{0.5 - Ω(η)}$. Here, $\mathbf{p}$ and $\mathbf{q}$ are the mean vectors of $P$ and $Q$ respectively, and no bound on $\|\mathbf{p} - \mathbf{q}\|_1$ is known to the algorithm a priori. |
| title | Product distribution learning with imperfect advice |
| topic | Machine Learning |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.10366 |