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Activity Number: 206 - Machine Learning Methodology
Type: Contributed
Date/Time: Tuesday, August 4, 2020 : 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM
Sponsor: Section on Statistical Learning and Data Science
Abstract #313122
Title: Interpreting Robust Optimization via Adversarial Influence Functions
Author(s): Linjun Zhang* and Zhun Deng and Jialiang Wang and Cynthia Dwork
Companies: Rutgers University and Harvard University and Harvard University and Harvard University
Keywords: robust optimization; adversarial attack; influence function
Abstract:

Robust optimization has been widely used in nowadays data science, especially in adversarial training. However, little research has been done to quantify how robust optimization changes the optimizers and the prediction losses comparing to standard training. In this paper, inspired by the influence function in robust statistics, we introduce the Adversarial Influence Function (AIF) as a tool to investigate the solution produced by robust optimization. The proposed AIF enjoys a closed-form and can be calculated efficiently. To illustrate the usage of AIF, we apply it to study model sensitivity --- a quantity defined to capture the change of prediction losses on the natural data after implementing robust optimization. We use AIF to analyze how model complexity and randomized smoothing affect the model sensitivity with respect to specific models. We further derive AIF for kernel regressions, with a particular application to neural tangent kernels, and experimentally demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed AIF. Lastly, the theories of AIF will be extended to distributional robust optimization.


Authors who are presenting talks have a * after their name.

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