Robustness of AutoML on Dirty Categorical Data

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Bueno, Marcos L. P., Vanschoren, Joaquin
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2026
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author Bueno, Marcos L. P.
Vanschoren, Joaquin
author_facet Bueno, Marcos L. P.
Vanschoren, Joaquin
contents The goal of automated machine learning (AutoML) is to reduce trial and error when doing machine learning (ML). Although AutoML methods for classification are able to deal with data imperfections, such as outliers, multiple scales and missing data, their behavior is less known on dirty categorical datasets. These datasets often have several categorical features with high cardinality arising from issues such as lack of curation and automated collection. Recent research has shown that ML models can benefit from morphological encoders for dirty categorical data, leading to significantly superior predictive performance. However the effects of using such encoders in AutoML methods are not known at the moment. In this paper, we propose a pipeline that transforms categorical data into numerical data so that an AutoML can handle categorical data transformed by more advanced encoding schemes. We benchmark the current robustness of AutoML methods on a set of dirty datasets and compare it with the proposed pipeline. This allows us to get insight on differences in predictive performance. We also look at the ML pipelines built by AutoMLs in order to gain insight beyond the best model as typically returned by these methods.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_00412
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Robustness of AutoML on Dirty Categorical Data
Bueno, Marcos L. P.
Vanschoren, Joaquin
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
The goal of automated machine learning (AutoML) is to reduce trial and error when doing machine learning (ML). Although AutoML methods for classification are able to deal with data imperfections, such as outliers, multiple scales and missing data, their behavior is less known on dirty categorical datasets. These datasets often have several categorical features with high cardinality arising from issues such as lack of curation and automated collection. Recent research has shown that ML models can benefit from morphological encoders for dirty categorical data, leading to significantly superior predictive performance. However the effects of using such encoders in AutoML methods are not known at the moment. In this paper, we propose a pipeline that transforms categorical data into numerical data so that an AutoML can handle categorical data transformed by more advanced encoding schemes. We benchmark the current robustness of AutoML methods on a set of dirty datasets and compare it with the proposed pipeline. This allows us to get insight on differences in predictive performance. We also look at the ML pipelines built by AutoMLs in order to gain insight beyond the best model as typically returned by these methods.
title Robustness of AutoML on Dirty Categorical Data
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.00412