Approximating Likelihood Ratios with Calibrated Discriminative Classifiers

2015/06/06 by Kyle Cranmer, K. Cranmer, Cranmer, Kyle +4 · 134 citations
Computer Science · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Algorithm #Algorithms and Data Compression #Approximate Bayesian computation #Artificial intelligence #Bayesian Methods and Mixture Models #Bayesian probability #Computation #Computer science #Dimensionality reduction #Discriminative model #Estimation theory #Gaussian Processes and Bayesian Inference #Generative grammar #Generative model #Inference #Invariant (physics) #Likelihood function #Likelihood-ratio test #Machine learning #Marginal likelihood #Mathematics #Pattern recognition (psychology) #Score #Statistical inference #Statistics #msc:62F99 #msc:62H30 #msc:62P35 #physics.data-an #stat.AP #stat.ML

paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1506.02169

published in arXiv (Cornell University) (Cornell University) · 35 pages, 5 figures

openalex publication_date 2015/06/06 · arxiv created 2016/03/18 · arxiv updated 2016/03/21 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

In many fields of science, generalized likelihood ratio tests are established tools for statistical inference. At the same time, it has become increasingly common that a simulator (or generative model) is used to describe complex processes that tie parameters θ of an underlying theory and measurement apparatus to high-dimensional observations x∈ ℝ^p. However, simulator often do not provide a way to evaluate the likelihood function for a given observation x, which motivates a new class of likelihood-free inference algorithms. In this paper, we show that likelihood ratios are invariant under a specific class of dimensionality reduction maps ℝ^p ↦ ℝ. As a direct consequence, we show that discriminative classifiers can be used to approximate the generalized likelihood ratio statistic when only a generative model for the data is available. This leads to a new machine learning-based approach to likelihood-free inference that is complementary to Approximate Bayesian Computation, and which does not require a prior on the model parameters. Experimental results on artificial problems with known exact likelihoods illustrate the potential of the proposed method.

Citations

• Observation of a new particle in the search for the Standard Model Higgs boson with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

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