Implicit Bias and Invariance: How Hopfield Networks Efficiently Learn Graph Orbits

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Murray, Michael, Chan, Tenzin, Karhadker, Kedar, Hillar, Christopher J.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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_version_ 1866918294543400960
author Murray, Michael
Chan, Tenzin
Karhadker, Kedar
Hillar, Christopher J.
author_facet Murray, Michael
Chan, Tenzin
Karhadker, Kedar
Hillar, Christopher J.
contents Many learning problems involve symmetries, and while invariance can be built into neural architectures, it can also emerge implicitly when training on group-structured data. We study this phenomenon in classical Hopfield networks and show they can infer the full isomorphism class of a graph from a small random sample. Our results reveal that: (i) graph isomorphism classes can be represented within a three-dimensional invariant subspace, (ii) using gradient descent to minimize energy flow (MEF) has an implicit bias toward norm-efficient solutions, which underpins a polynomial sample complexity bound for learning isomorphism classes, and (iii) across multiple learning rules, parameters converge toward the invariant subspace as sample sizes grow. Together, these findings highlight a unifying mechanism for generalization in Hopfield networks: a bias toward norm efficiency in learning drives the emergence of approximate invariance under group-structured data.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_14338
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Implicit Bias and Invariance: How Hopfield Networks Efficiently Learn Graph Orbits
Murray, Michael
Chan, Tenzin
Karhadker, Kedar
Hillar, Christopher J.
Machine Learning
68T07, 05C90
I.2.6; G.2.2
Many learning problems involve symmetries, and while invariance can be built into neural architectures, it can also emerge implicitly when training on group-structured data. We study this phenomenon in classical Hopfield networks and show they can infer the full isomorphism class of a graph from a small random sample. Our results reveal that: (i) graph isomorphism classes can be represented within a three-dimensional invariant subspace, (ii) using gradient descent to minimize energy flow (MEF) has an implicit bias toward norm-efficient solutions, which underpins a polynomial sample complexity bound for learning isomorphism classes, and (iii) across multiple learning rules, parameters converge toward the invariant subspace as sample sizes grow. Together, these findings highlight a unifying mechanism for generalization in Hopfield networks: a bias toward norm efficiency in learning drives the emergence of approximate invariance under group-structured data.
title Implicit Bias and Invariance: How Hopfield Networks Efficiently Learn Graph Orbits
topic Machine Learning
68T07, 05C90
I.2.6; G.2.2
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.14338