Entropy, concentration, and learning: a statistical mechanics primer

Akshay Balsubramani

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arXiv · 2409.18630

Entropy, concentration, and learning: a statistical mechanics primer

Akshay Balsubramani

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Abstract

Artificial intelligence models trained through loss minimization have demonstrated significant success, grounded in principles from fields like information theory and statistical physics. This work explores these established connections through the lens of statistical mechanics, starting from first-principles sample concentration behaviors that underpin AI and machine learning. Our development of statistical mechanics for modeling highlights the key role of exponential families, and quantities of statistics, physics, and information theory.

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cs.LG cond-mat.stat-mech cs.AI cs.IT math.IT stat.ML

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Akshay Balsubramani. 2024-09-27. Entropy, concentration, and learning: a statistical mechanics primer. https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.18630

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