No Arabic abstract
Boosting is a general method to convert a weak learner (which generates hypotheses that are just slightly better than random) into a strong learner (which generates hypotheses that are much better than random). Recently, Arunachalam and Maity gave the first quantum improvement for boosting, by combining Freund and Schapires AdaBoost algorithm with a quantum algorithm for approximate counting. Their booster is faster than classical boosting as a function of the VC-dimension of the weak learners hypothesis class, but worse as a function of the quality of the weak learner. In this paper we give a substantially faster and simpler quantum boosting algorithm, based on Servedios SmoothBoost algorithm.
We propose a learning model called the quantum statistical learning QSQ model, which extends the SQ learning model introduced by Kearns to the quantum setting. Our model can be also seen as a restriction of the quantum PAC learning model: here, the learner does not have direct access to quantum examples, but can only obtain estimates of measurement statistics on them. Theoretically, this model provides a simple yet expressive setting to explore the power of quantum examples in machine learning. From a practical perspective, since simpler operations are required, learning algorithms in the QSQ model are more feasible for implementation on near-term quantum devices. We prove a number of results about the QSQ learning model. We first show that parity functions, (log n)-juntas and polynomial-sized DNF formulas are efficiently learnable in the QSQ model, in contrast to the classical setting where these problems are provably hard. This implies that many of the advantages of quantum PAC learning can be realized even in the more restricted quantum SQ learning model. It is well-known that weak statistical query dimension, denoted by WSQDIM(C), characterizes the complexity of learning a concept class C in the classical SQ model. We show that log(WSQDIM(C)) is a lower bound on the complexity of QSQ learning, and furthermore it is tight for certain concept classes C. Additionally, we show that this quantity provides strong lower bounds for the small-bias quantum communication model under product distributions. Finally, we introduce the notion of private quantum PAC learning, in which a quantum PAC learner is required to be differentially private. We show that learnability in the QSQ model implies learnability in the quantum private PAC model. Additionally, we show that in the private PAC learning setting, the classical and quantum sample complexities are equal, up to constant factors.
This paper surveys quantum learning theory: the theoretical aspects of machine learning using quantum computers. We describe the main results known for three models of learning: exact learning from membership queries, and Probably Approximately Correct (PAC) and agnostic learning from classical or quantum examples.
Given a quantum circuit, a quantum computer can sample the output distribution exponentially faster in the number of bits than classical computers. A similar exponential separation has yet to be established in generative models through quantum sample learning: given samples from an n-qubit computation, can we learn the underlying quantum distribution using models with training parameters that scale polynomial in n under a fixed training time? We study four kinds of generative models: Deep Boltzmann machine (DBM), Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) and Autoregressive GAN, on learning quantum data set generated by deep random circuits. We demonstrate the leading performance of LSTM in learning quantum samples, and thus the autoregressive structure present in the underlying quantum distribution from random quantum circuits. Both numerical experiments and a theoretical proof in the case of the DBM show exponentially growing complexity of learning-agent parameters required for achieving a fixed accuracy as n increases. Finally, we establish a connection between learnability and the complexity of generative models by benchmarking learnability against different sets of samples drawn from probability distributions of variable degrees of complexities in their quantum and classical representations.
$ ewcommand{eps}{varepsilon} $In learning theory, the VC dimension of a concept class $C$ is the most common way to measure its richness. In the PAC model $$ ThetaBig(frac{d}{eps} + frac{log(1/delta)}{eps}Big) $$ examples are necessary and sufficient for a learner to output, with probability $1-delta$, a hypothesis $h$ that is $eps$-close to the target concept $c$. In the related agnostic model, where the samples need not come from a $cin C$, we know that $$ ThetaBig(frac{d}{eps^2} + frac{log(1/delta)}{eps^2}Big) $$ examples are necessary and sufficient to output an hypothesis $hin C$ whose error is at most $eps$ worse than the best concept in $C$. Here we analyze quantum sample complexity, where each example is a coherent quantum state. This model was introduced by Bshouty and Jackson, who showed that quantum examples are more powerful than classical examples in some fixed-distribution settings. However, Atici and Servedio, improved by Zhang, showed that in the PAC setting, quantum examples cannot be much more powerful: the required number of quantum examples is $$ OmegaBig(frac{d^{1-eta}}{eps} + d + frac{log(1/delta)}{eps}Big)mbox{ for all }eta> 0. $$ Our main result is that quantum and classical sample complexity are in fact equal up to constant factors in both the PAC and agnostic models. We give two approaches. The first is a fairly simple information-theoretic argument that yields the above two classical bounds and yields the same bounds for quantum sample complexity up to a $log(d/eps)$ factor. We then give a second approach that avoids the log-factor loss, based on analyzing the behavior of the Pretty Good Measurement on the quantum state identification problems that correspond to learning. This shows classical and quantum sample complexity are equal up to constant factors.
We present two new results about exact learning by quantum computers. First, we show how to exactly learn a $k$-Fourier-sparse $n$-bit Boolean function from $O(k^{1.5}(log k)^2)$ uniform quantum examples for that function. This improves over the bound of $widetilde{Theta}(kn)$ uniformly random classical examples (Haviv and Regev, CCC15). Our main tool is an improvement of Changs lemma for the special case of sparse functions. Second, we show that if a concept class $mathcal{C}$ can be exactly learned using $Q$ quantum membership queries, then it can also be learned using $Oleft(frac{Q^2}{log Q}log|mathcal{C}|right)$ classical membership queries. This improves the previous-best simulation result (Servedio and Gortler, SICOMP04) by a $log Q$-factor.