EasyDeepLearn

State Jensen's inequality and give an ML example.

hard

Answer

  • For a convex function g: E[g(X)] ≥ g(E[X]).
  • Concave: E[g(X)] ≤ g(E[X]).
  • Consequence: E[X2]E[X^{2}](E[X])2(E[X])^{2} → variance is non-negative.
  • In ML: (1) log-likelihood is concave — Jensen bounds expected log-likelihood ≤ log of expected likelihood; foundation of the EM algorithm's E-step.
  • (2) log(mean  prediction)\operatorname{log}(\mathrm{mean}\;\mathrm{prediction}) ≤ mean log(prediction)\operatorname{log}(\mathrm{prediction}) — used in ensembling analyses.
  • (3) Explains why you can't just average logs then exponentiate to recover a mean.
Check yourself — multiple choice
  • Wrong direction
  • Convex g: E[g(X)] ≥ g(E[X]); concave: opposite; foundation of EM E-step, ensembling analysis
  • Only for linear g
  • Not useful

Jensen: E[g(X)] ≥ g(E[X]) for convex g; foundation of EM.

#probability#theory#expectation

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