参数对称性决定过参数化非线性网络中的表征几何
Parameter Symmetries Determine Representational Geometry in Overparameterized Nonlinear Networks
Marvin Theiss, Lukas Braun, Andrew M. Saxe, Erin Grant
AI 速读 基于摘要
作者提出参数对称性通过加法、复制与缩放三种基本特征变换作用于表征,并给出表征几何的闭式分解,说明过参数化下功能固定时表征仍可能退化。
cs.LG
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Representations are routinely used across machine learning, psychology, and neuroscience to draw inferences about the computations of biological and artificial systems. Such inferences presume that the geometry of these representations reflects the computation being performed. For artificial neural networks, however, the extent to which the function a network computes constrains this geometry remains unclear. One key obstacle is that these networks admit parameter symmetries: changes in parameterization that preserve function exactly while reshaping representational geometry. Here, we show that a broad class of parameter symmetries acts on representations through just three primitive feature transformations: addition, duplication, and scaling. This feature-level characterization yields a closed-form decomposition of representational geometry into essential and auxiliary components, revealing how representational degeneracy can exist without and grows with overparameterization even when function is held fixed. Finally, we establish conditions under which implementation-level selection rules resolve this degeneracy, yielding identifiable geometries in which features are weighted according to their contributions to the network's function. Together, our results delineate when representational geometry can support inferences about computation, and when it cannot.