Efficient and Private Property Testing via Indistinguishability

Abstract

Given a small random sample of $n$-bit strings labeled by an unknown Boolean function, which properties of this function can be tested computationally efficiently? We show an equivalence between properties that are efficiently testable from few samples and properties with structured symmetry, which depend only on the function's average values on an efficiently computable partition of the domain. Without the efficiency constraint, a similar characterization in terms of unstructured symmetry was obtained by Blais and Yoshida (2019). We also give a function testing analogue of the classic characterization of testable graph properties in terms of regular partitions, as well as a sublinear time and differentially private algorithm to compute concise summaries of such partitions of graphs. Finally, we tighten a recent characterization of the computational indistinguishability of product distributions, which encompasses the related task of efficiently testing which of two candidate functions labeled the observed samples. Essential to our proofs is the following observation of independent interest: Every randomized Boolean function, no matter how complex, admits a supersimulator: a randomized polynomial-size circuit whose output on random inputs cannot be efficiently distinguished from reality with constant advantage, even by polynomially larger distinguishers. This surprising fact is implicit in a theorem of Dwork et al. (2021) in the context of algorithmic fairness, but its complexity-theoretic implications were not previously explored. We give a new proof of this lemma using an iteration technique from the graph regularity literature, and we observe that a subtle quantifier switch allows it to powerfully circumvent known barriers to improving the landmark complexity-theoretic regularity lemma of Trevisan, Tulsiani, and Vadhan (2009).