Skip to yearly menu bar Skip to main content


Poster

Geometry-Calibrated DRO: Combating Over-Pessimism with Free Energy Implications

Jiashuo Liu · Jiayun Wu · Tianyu Wang · Hao Zou · Bo Li · Peng Cui

Hall C 4-9 #2714
[ ] [ Paper PDF ]
[ Poster
Tue 23 Jul 4:30 a.m. PDT — 6 a.m. PDT

Abstract:

Machine learning algorithms minimizing average risk are susceptible to distributional shifts. Distributionally Robust Optimization (DRO) addresses this issue by optimizing the worst-case risk within an uncertainty set. However, DRO suffers from over-pessimism, leading to low-confidence predictions, poor parameter estimations as well as poor generalization. In this work, we conduct a theoretical analysis of a probable root cause of over-pessimism: excessive focus on noisy samples. To alleviate the impact of noise, we incorporate data geometry into calibration terms in DRO, resulting in our novel Geometry-Calibrated DRO (GCDRO) for regression. We establish the connection between our risk objective and the Helmholtz free energy in statistical physics, and this free-energy-based risk can extend to standard DRO methods. Leveraging gradient flow in Wasserstein space, we develop an approximate minimax optimization algorithm with a bounded error ratio and elucidate how our approach mitigates noisy sample effects. Comprehensive experiments confirm GCDRO's superiority over conventional DRO methods.

Chat is not available.