Consider the classical supervised learning problem: we are given data $(y_i,{boldsymbol x}_i)$, $ile n$, with $y_i$ a response and ${boldsymbol x}_iin {mathcal X}$ a covariates vector, and try to learn a model $f:{mathcal X}to{mathbb R}$ to predict future responses. Random features methods map the covariates vector ${boldsymbol x}_i$ to a point ${boldsymbol phi}({boldsymbol x}_i)$ in a higher dimensional space ${mathbb R}^N$, via a random featurization map ${boldsymbol phi}$. We study the use of random features methods in conjunction with ridge regression in the feature space ${mathbb R}^N$. This can be viewed as a finite-dimensional approximation of kernel ridge regression (KRR), or as a stylized model for neural networks in the so called lazy training regime. We define a class of problems satisfying certain spectral conditions on the underlying kernels, and a hypercontractivity assumption on the associated eigenfunctions. These conditions are verified by classical high-dimensional examples. Under these conditions, we prove a sharp characterization of the error of random features ridge regression. In particular, we address two fundamental questions: $(1)$~What is the generalization error of KRR? $(2)$~How big $N$ should be for the random features approximation to achieve the same error as KRR? In this setting, we prove that KRR is well approximated by a projection onto the top $ell$ eigenfunctions of the kernel, where $ell$ depends on the sample size $n$. We show that the test error of random features ridge regression is dominated by its approximation error and is larger than the error of KRR as long as $Nle n^{1-delta}$ for some $delta>0$. We characterize this gap. For $Nge n^{1+delta}$, random features achieve the same error as the corresponding KRR, and further increasing $N$ does not lead to a significant change in test error.
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