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Across applications spanning supervised classification and sequential control, deep learning has been reported to find shortcut'' solutions that fail catastrophically under minor changes in the data distribution. In this paper, we show empirically that DNNs can be coaxed to avoid poor shortcuts by providing an additional
priming'' feature computed from key input features, usually a coarse output estimate. Priming relies on approximate domain knowledge of these task-relevant key input features, which is often easy to obtain in practical settings. For example, one might prioritize recent frames over past frames in a video input for visual imitation learning, or salient foreground over background pixels for image classification. On NICO image classification, MuJoCo continuous control, and CARLA autonomous driving, our priming strategy works significantly better than several popular state-of-the-art approaches for feature selection and data augmentation. We connect these empirical findings to recent theoretical results on DNN optimization, and argue theoretically that priming distracts the optimizer away from poor shortcuts by creating better, simpler shortcuts.
Author Information
Chuan Wen (Tsinghua University)
Jianing Qian (University of Pennsylvania)
Jierui Lin (UT Austin)
Jiaye Teng (Tsinghua University)
Dinesh Jayaraman (University of Pennsylvania)
Yang Gao (Tsinghua University)
Related Events (a corresponding poster, oral, or spotlight)
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2022 Spotlight: Fighting Fire with Fire: Avoiding DNN Shortcuts through Priming »
Thu. Jul 21st 02:35 -- 02:40 PM Room Ballroom 1 & 2
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