论文标题
关于因果模型的概括和适应性表现
On the Generalization and Adaption Performance of Causal Models
论文作者
论文摘要
提供强大分布概括和快速适应的学习模型是现代机器学习的关键挑战。将因果结构建模到神经网络中,有望实现强大的零和几乎没有射击的适应性。可区分因果发现的最新进展提出,将数据生成过程分解为一组模块,即每个变量的条件分布的一个模块,而仅因果父母仅将因果父母用作预测因素。这种知识模块化分解可以通过仅更新参数的子集来适应分布的变化。在这项工作中,我们通过将其与单片模型和结构化模型进行比较,在这些模块化因果模型和结构化模型中,我们系统地研究了这种模块化神经因果模型的概括和适应性性能,在该模型中,该预测因子集不受因果父母的约束。我们的分析表明,模块化神经因果模型在低数据制度中的其他模型的表现都优于其他模型,并且提供了稳定的概括。我们还发现,与较密集的图相比,这种效果对于稀疏图更为重要。
Learning models that offer robust out-of-distribution generalization and fast adaptation is a key challenge in modern machine learning. Modelling causal structure into neural networks holds the promise to accomplish robust zero and few-shot adaptation. Recent advances in differentiable causal discovery have proposed to factorize the data generating process into a set of modules, i.e. one module for the conditional distribution of every variable where only causal parents are used as predictors. Such a modular decomposition of knowledge enables adaptation to distributions shifts by only updating a subset of parameters. In this work, we systematically study the generalization and adaption performance of such modular neural causal models by comparing it to monolithic models and structured models where the set of predictors is not constrained to causal parents. Our analysis shows that the modular neural causal models outperform other models on both zero and few-shot adaptation in low data regimes and offer robust generalization. We also found that the effects are more significant for sparser graphs as compared to denser graphs.