stat.MLOct 22, 2026

Combinatorial Characterizations of the Learnability of Conditional Distributions

Authors: Mihir Dhanakshirur, Ambuj Tewari

Organizations: University of Michigan

Abstract

We study the PAC-learnability of function classes that map inputs to probability distributions over a finite space. The learner observes i.i.d. input-label pairs, with each label sampled from the conditional distribution of an unknown target hypothesis in the class. We measure learning through excess risk under a bounded proper loss that satisfies two mild assumptions. We introduce the \textbf{fatγ_γNatarajan dimension}, which generalizes both fatγ_γ and Natarajan dimension, and prove that its finiteness at every positive scale is necessary and sufficient for learnability. We also introduce a \textbf{fatγ_γGraph} dimension extending the classical \gra dimension and establish inequalities comparing the two dimensions at different scales, leading to an equivalent characterization of learnability. Finally, we show that a distribution-valued function class is learnable if and only if each of its coordinate classes is learnable in the probabilistic concept model.

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