Universal approximations of permutation invariant/equivariant functions by deep neural networks

In this paper,we develop a theory of the relationship between permutation ($S_n$-) invariant/equivariant functions and deep neural networks. As a result, we prove an permutation invariant/equivariant version of the universal approximation theorem, i.e $S_n$-invariant/equivariant deep neural networks. The equivariant models are consist of stacking standard single-layer neural networks $Z_i:X \to Y$ for which every $Z_i$ is $S_n$-equivariant with respect to the actions of $S_n$ . The invariant models are consist of stacking equivariant models and standard single-layer neural networks $Z_i:X \to Y$ for which every $Z_i$ is $S_n$-invariant with respect to the actions of $S_n$ . These are universal approximators to $S_n$-invariant/equivariant functions. The above notation is mathematically natural generalization of the models in \cite{deepsets}. We also calculate the number of free parameters appeared in these models. As a result, the number of free parameters appeared in these models is much smaller than the one of the usual models. Hence, we conclude that although the free parameters of the invariant/equivarint models are exponentially fewer than the one of the usual models, the invariant/equivariant models can approximate the invariant/equivariant functions to arbitrary accuracy. This gives us an understanding of why the invariant/equivariant models designed in [Zaheer et al. 2018] work well.