arXiv Machine Learning

Stochastic Autoregressive Learning

arXiv:2608. 07224v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Motivated by LLMs, which generate outputs by iteratively sampling from next-token distributions, we introduce a PAC-learning model for binary stochastic autoregressive learning.

arXiv Machine Learning
Jul 9

The Optimal Sample Complexity of Learning Autoregressive Chain-of-Thought

arXiv:2607. 07423v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We prove that, in the realizable PAC setting, the sample complexity of exact-trace learning for full autoregressive Chain-of-Thought traces is upper bounded by the standard multiclass rate of the local next-token class, where this rate is governed by the Daniely--Shalev-Shwartz dimension.

By Zhiyuan Li
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 18

Next-token functional estimation

The paper introduces a leave‑a‑window‑out estimator for next‑token functionals, such as the surprise probability and test error, in sequences of random variables. By deleting a window of length τ after each index, the estimator generalizes leave‑one‑out and achieves parametric error decay for stationary β‑mixing processes that admit a Marton coupling. The authors provide both upper bounds and a minimax lower bound for the surprise probability, and demonstrate through simulations that their method outperforms traditional baselines on Markov, moving‑average, and autoregressive processes.

By Milind Nakul, Vidya Muthukumar, Ashwin Pananjady
Hugging Face Trending Papers
Sep 17

Next-token functional estimation

Suppose we observe the first $n$ points of a sequence of random variables having length $n+1$, and wish to estimate a functional of the unobserved final point and the empirical measure of the $n$ obse...

arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 24

Linear RNN Scaling Laws: When Longer Sequences Beat More Sequences

The paper presents empirical scaling laws for autoregressive language models, linking prediction loss to model size, data size, and compute, and investigates their theoretical basis using a teacher–student linear RNN framework. In this tractable setting, a stable latent linear RNN generates trajectories while a sketched linear recurrent student is trained via full‑batch WSD gradient descent on next‑token prediction. The study derives explicit approximation, optimization, and statistical scaling laws that depend on the sketch dimension, number of trajectories, and trajectory length, revealing how different power‑law exponents for innovation and initialization covariances affect the rates and crossovers between regimes.

By Ziyan Chen, Zhongzhu Zhou, Peilin Liu, Ding-Xuan Zhou
arXiv Machine Learning
Sep 10

Sharp Structure-Agnostic Minimax Risk for Partial Linear Models

arXiv:2609. 07997v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: We characterize the sharp structure-agnostic minimax risk for coefficient estimation in the partial linear model when the outcome and treatment nuisances are learned by two distinct black-box learners, which resolves the open problem in double machine learning posed by Gu (2025).

By Haichen Hu, David Simchi-Levi
arXiv Machine Learning
Jul 14

Exact Dynamics of Multi-class Stochastic Gradient Descent

arXiv:2510. 14074v2 Announce Type: replace-cross Abstract: We develop a framework for analyzing the learning dynamics of high-dimensional problems trained using one-pass stochastic gradient descent (SGD) with data from multiple anisotropic classes.

By Elizabeth Collins-Woodfin, Inbar Seroussi