Abstract

We consider the information complexity of learning in metric spaces. We discuss two models of such learning processes. The first one is the Learning By Distances (LBD) model of Ben-David et al [BIK]. In this model a concept is a point in a metric space, at each step of the learning process the student offers a hypothesis and receives from the teacher an approximation of its distance to the target. We also present a new Relative Distances (RD) model. In this model, at each step, the student presents two points and receives a bit indicating which of them is closer to the target. We investigate the learning complexity in both models. We provide general lower and upper bounds on the complexity of learning concept classes in these models. We then analyze the complexity of several natural concept classes in two metric spaces; the space of boolean formulas with the metric induced by the number of satisfying assignments and spaces defined on graphs with the metric induced by the length of the shortest path between pairs of nodes. 1

Citations