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 Uncertainty


Scalable bayesian shadow tomography for quantum property estimation with set transformers

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

A scalable Bayesian machine learning framework is introduced for estimating scalar properties of an unknown quantum state from measurement data, which bypasses full density matrix reconstruction. This work is the first to integrate the classical shadows protocol with a permutation-invariant set transformer architecture, enabling the approach to predict and correct bias in existing estimators to approximate the true Bayesian posterior mean. Measurement outcomes are encoded as fixed-dimensional feature vectors, and the network outputs a residual correction to a baseline estimator. Scalability to large quantum systems is ensured by the polynomial dependence of input size on system size and number of measurements. On Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state fidelity and second-order Rényi entropy estimation tasks -- using random Pauli and random Clifford measurements -- this Bayesian estimator always achieves lower mean squared error than classical shadows alone, with more than a 99\% reduction in the few copy regime.


Bayesian Active Inference for Intelligent UAV Anti-Jamming and Adaptive Trajectory Planning

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

Abstract--This paper proposes a hierarchical trajectory planning framework for UA Vs operating under adversarial jamming conditions. Leveraging Bayesian Active Inference, the approach combines expert-generated demonstrations with probabilistic generative modeling to encode high-level symbolic planning, low-level motion policies, and wireless signal feedback. During deployment, the UA V performs online inference to anticipate interference, localize jammers, and adapt its trajectory accordingly--without prior knowledge of jammer locations. Simulation results demonstrate that the proposed method achieves near-expert performance, significantly reducing communication interference and mission cost compared to model-free reinforcement learning baselines, while maintaining robust generalization in dynamic environments. Unmanned Aerial V ehicles (UA Vs) play a crucial role in military, public, and civilian applications due to their compact size, flexible deployment capabilities, and outstanding performance.


Credal and Interval Deep Evidential Classifications

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

Uncertainty Quantification (UQ) presents a pivotal challenge in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI), profoundly impacting decision-making, risk assessment and model reliability. In this paper, we introduce Credal and Interval Deep Evidential Classifications (CDEC and IDEC, respectively) as novel approaches to address UQ in classification tasks. CDEC and IDEC leverage a credal set (closed and convex set of probabilities) and an interval of evidential predictive distributions, respectively, allowing us to avoid overfitting to the training data and to systematically assess both epistemic (reducible) and aleatoric (irreducible) uncertainties. When those surpass acceptable thresholds, CDEC and IDEC have the capability to abstain from classification and flag an excess of epistemic or aleatoric uncertainty, as relevant. Conversely, within acceptable uncertainty bounds, CDEC and IDEC provide a collection of labels with robust probabilistic guarantees. CDEC and IDEC are trained using standard backpropagation and a loss function that draws from the theory of evidence. They overcome the shortcomings of previous efforts, and extend the current evidential deep learning literature. Through extensive experiments on MNIST, CIFAR-10 and CIFAR-100, together with their natural OoD shifts (F-MNIST/K-MNIST, SVHN/Intel, TinyImageNet), we show that CDEC and IDEC achieve competitive predictive accuracy, state-of-the-art OoD detection under epistemic and total uncertainty, and tight, well-calibrated prediction regions that expand reliably under distribution shift. An ablation over ensemble size further demonstrates that CDEC attains stable uncertainty estimates with only a small ensemble.


Uncertainty-Aware Data-Efficient AI: An Information-Theoretic Perspective

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

In context-specific applications such as robotics, telecommunications, and healthcare, artificial intelligence systems often face the challenge of limited training data. This scarcity introduces epistemic uncertainty, i.e., reducible uncertainty stemming from incomplete knowledge of the underlying data distribution, which fundamentally limits predictive performance. This review paper examines formal methodologies that address data-limited regimes through two complementary approaches: quantifying epistemic uncertainty and mitigating data scarcity via synthetic data augmentation. We begin by reviewing generalized Bayesian learning frameworks that characterize epistemic uncertainty through generalized posteriors in the model parameter space, as well as ``post-Bayes'' learning frameworks. We continue by presenting information-theoretic generalization bounds that formalize the relationship between training data quantity and predictive uncertainty, providing a theoretical justification for generalized Bayesian learning. Moving beyond methods with asymptotic statistical validity, we survey uncertainty quantification methods that provide finite-sample statistical guarantees, including conformal prediction and conformal risk control. Finally, we examine recent advances in data efficiency by combining limited labeled data with abundant model predictions or synthetic data. Throughout, we take an information-theoretic perspective, highlighting the role of information measures in quantifying the impact of data scarcity.


Resolving Zadehs Paradox Axiomatic Possibility Theory as a Foundation for Reliable Artificial Intelligence

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

This work advances and substantiates the thesis that the resolution of this crisis lies in the domain of possibility theory, specifically in the axiomatic approach developed in Bychkovs article. Unlike numerous attempts to fix Dempster rule, this approach builds from scratch a logically consistent and mathematically rigorous foundation for working with uncertainty, using the dualistic apparatus of possibility and necessity measures. The aim of this work is to demonstrate that possibility theory is not merely an alternative, but provides a fundamental resolution to DST paradoxes. A comparative analysis of three paradigms will be conducted probabilistic, evidential, and possibilistic. Using a classic medical diagnostic dilemma as an example, it will be shown how possibility theory allows for correct processing of contradictory data, avoiding the logical traps of DST and bringing formal reasoning closer to the logic of natural intelligence.


Operator learning meets inverse problems: A probabilistic perspective

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

Operator learning offers a robust framework for approximating mappings between infinite-dimensional function spaces. It has also become a powerful tool for solving inverse problems in the computational sciences. This chapter surveys methodological and theoretical developments at the intersection of operator learning and inverse problems. It begins by summarizing the probabilistic and deterministic approaches to inverse problems, and pays special attention to emerging measure-centric formulations that treat observed data or unknown parameters as probability distributions. The discussion then turns to operator learning by covering essential components such as data generation, loss functions, and widely used architectures for representing function-to-function maps. The core of the chapter centers on the end-to-end inverse operator learning paradigm, which aims to directly map observed data to the solution of the inverse problem without requiring explicit knowledge of the forward map. It highlights the unique challenge that noise plays in this data-driven inversion setting, presents structure-aware architectures for both point predictions and posterior estimates, and surveys relevant theory for linear and nonlinear inverse problems. The chapter also discusses the estimation of priors and regularizers, where operator learning is used more selectively within classical inversion algorithms.


Control Consistency Losses for Diffusion Bridges

arXiv.org Machine Learning

Simulating the conditioned dynamics of diffusion processes, given their initial and terminal states, is an important but challenging problem in the sciences. The difficulty is particularly pronounced for rare events, for which the unconditioned dynamics rarely reach the terminal state. In this work, we leverage a self-consistency property of the conditioned dynamics to learn the diffusion bridge in an iterative online manner, and demonstrate promising empirical results in a range of settings.


Towards a unified framework for guided diffusion models

arXiv.org Machine Learning

Guided or controlled data generation with diffusion models\blfootnote{Partial preliminary results of this work appeared in International Conference on Machine Learning 2025 \citep{li2025provable}.} has become a cornerstone of modern generative modeling. Despite substantial advances in diffusion model theory, the theoretical understanding of guided diffusion samplers remains severely limited. We make progress by developing a unified algorithmic and theoretical framework that accommodates both diffusion guidance and reward-guided diffusion. Aimed at fine-tuning diffusion models to improve certain rewards, we propose injecting a reward guidance term -- constructed from the difference between the original and reward-reweighted scores -- into the backward diffusion process, and rigorously quantify the resulting reward improvement over the unguided counterpart. As a key application, our framework shows that classifier-free guidance (CFG) decreases the expected reciprocal of the classifier probability, providing the first theoretical characterization of the specific performance metric that CFG improves for general target distributions. When applied to reward-guided diffusion, our framework yields a new sampler that is easy-to-train and requires no full diffusion trajectories during training. Numerical experiments further corroborate our theoretical findings.


Learning Causality for Longitudinal Data

arXiv.org Machine Learning

This thesis develops methods for causal inference and causal representation learning (CRL) in high-dimensional, time-varying data. The first contribution introduces the Causal Dynamic Variational Autoencoder (CDVAE), a model for estimating Individual Treatment Effects (ITEs) by capturing unobserved heterogeneity in treatment response driven by latent risk factors that affect only outcomes. CDVAE comes with theoretical guarantees on valid latent adjustment and generalization bounds for ITE error. Experiments on synthetic and real datasets show that CDVAE outperforms baselines, and that state-of-the-art models greatly improve when augmented with its latent substitutes, approaching oracle performance without access to true adjustment variables. The second contribution proposes an efficient framework for long-term counterfactual regression based on RNNs enhanced with Contrastive Predictive Coding (CPC) and InfoMax. It captures long-range dependencies under time-varying confounding while avoiding the computational cost of transformers, achieving state-of-the-art results and introducing CPC into causal inference. The third contribution advances CRL by addressing how latent causes manifest in observed variables. We introduce a model-agnostic interpretability layer based on the geometry of the decoder Jacobian. A sparse self-expression prior induces modular, possibly overlapping groups of observed features aligned with shared latent influences. We provide recovery guarantees in both disjoint and overlapping settings and show that meaningful latent-to-observed structure can be recovered without anchor features or single-parent assumptions. Scalable Jacobian-based regularization techniques are also developed.


Amortized Inference of Multi-Modal Posteriors using Likelihood-Weighted Normalizing Flows

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

Across diverse domains--from complex systems and finance to high-energy physics and astrophysics--scientific inquiry often relies on deriving theoretical parameters from observational data [1]. At the core of this challenge lies the inverse problem: inferring the posterior distribution of theoretical parameters given a set of observables [2]. Traditional approaches for posterior estimation rely on sampling algorithms such as Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) [3, 4] and Nested Sampling (NS) [5]. In astrophysics and cosmology, implementations like emcee [6] and dynesty [7] have become standard tools. While these frameworks are statistically robust, they suffer significantly from the curse of dimensionality. In real-world scenarios, where the parameter space is high-dimensional and the likelihood function relies on computationally expensive simulators (e.g., in particle physics phenomenology [8]), convergence can take weeks or even months. Recent advances in machine learning have introduced Normalizing Flows (NFs) as a powerful alternative for probabilistic modelling [9, 10]. By learning a bijective mapping between a simple base distribution (e.g., a Gaussian) and the complex target distribution, NFs allow for exact density estimation and efficient sampling [11] from the target distribution. Modern architectures, such as RealNVP [12] and Neural Spline Flows [13], offer enough expressivity to model highly complex distributions.