paper-with-me

Papers

A Universal Growth Rate for Learning with Smooth Surrogate Losses

2024-05-09 · Anqi Mao, Mehryar Mohri, Yutao Zhong

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the growth rate of $H$-consistency bounds (and excess error bounds) for various surrogate losses used in classification. We prove a square-root growth rate near zero for smooth margin-based surrogate losses in binary classification, providing both upper and lower bounds under mild assumptions. This result also translates to excess error bounds. Our lower bound requires weaker conditions than those in previous work for excess error bounds, and our upper bound is entirely novel. Moreover, we extend this analysis to multi-class classification with a series of novel results, demonstrating a universal square-root growth rate for smooth comp-sum and constrained losses, covering common choices for training neural networks in multi-class classification. Given this universal rate, we turn to the question of choosing among different surrogate losses. We first examine how $H$-consistency bounds vary across surrogates based on the number of classes. Next, ignoring constants and focusing on behavior near zero, we identify minimizability gaps as the key differentiating factor in these bounds. Thus, we thoroughly analyze these gaps, to guide surrogate loss selection, covering: comparisons across different comp-sum losses, conditions where gaps become zero, and general conditions leading to small gaps. Additionally, we demonstrate the key role of minimizability gaps in comparing excess error bounds and $H$-consistency bounds.

📄 PDF Abstract BibTeX arXiv:2405.05968

Code (0)

등록된 구현이 없습니다.

Tasks

Binary ClassificationClassificationMulti-class Classification

Similar Papers 제목 키워드 기반

Fundamental Novel Consistency Theory: $H$-Consistency Bounds

2025-12-28 · Yutao Zhong arxiv

In machine learning, the loss functions optimized during training often differ from the target loss that defines task performance due to computational intractability or lack of differentiability. We present an in-depth s…

Multi-class ClassificationBinary Classification

Establishing Linear Surrogate Regret Bounds for Convex Smooth Losses via Convolutional Fenchel-Young Losses

2025-05-14 · Yuzhou Cao, Han Bao, Lei Feng, Bo An

Surrogate regret bounds, also known as excess risk bounds, bridge the gap between the convergence rates of surrogate and target losses, with linear bounds favorable for their lossless regret transfer. While convex smooth…

Linear-Core Surrogates: Smooth Loss Functions with Linear Rates for Classification and Structured Prediction

2026-04-30 · Mehryar Mohri, Yutao Zhong arxiv

The choice of loss function in classification involves a fundamental trade-off: smooth losses (like Cross-Entropy) enable fast optimization rates but yield slow square-root consistency bounds, while piecewise-linear loss…

Structured Prediction

Learning Surrogate Losses

2019-05-24 · Josif Grabocka, Randolf Scholz, Lars Schmidt-Thieme

The minimization of loss functions is the heart and soul of Machine Learning. In this paper, we propose an off-the-shelf optimization approach that can minimize virtually any non-differentiable and non-decomposable loss …

Bilevel OptimizationGeneral Classification

Minimizing Surrogate Losses for Decision-Focused Learning using Differentiable Optimization

2025-08-15 · Jayanta Mandi, Ali İrfan Mahmutoğulları, Senne Berden, Tias Guns arxiv

Decision-focused learning (DFL) trains a machine learning (ML) model to predict parameters of an optimization problem, to directly minimize decision regret, i.e., maximize decision quality. Gradient-based DFL requires co…