In supervised learning, an inductive learning algorithm extracts general rules from observed training instances, then the rules are applied to test instances. We show that this splitting of training and application arises naturally, in the classical setting, from a simple independence requirement with a physical interpretation of being non-signalling. Thus, two seemingly different definitions of inductive learning happen to coincide. This follows from very specific properties of classical information, which break down in the quantum setup. We prove a quantum de Finetti theorem for quantum channels, which shows that in the quantum case, the equivalence holds in the asymptotic setting (for large number of test instances). This reveals a natural analogy between classical learning protocols and their quantum counterparts, thus allowing to naturally enquire about standard elements in computational learning theory, such as structural risk minimization, model and sample complexity.
In supervised learning, an inductive learning algorithm extracts general rules from observed training instances, then the rules are applied to test instances. We show that this splitting of training and application arises naturally, in the classical setting, from a simple independence requirement with a physical interpretation of being non-signalling. Thus, two seemingly different definitions of inductive learning happen to coincide. This follows from very specific properties of classical information, which break down in the quantum setup. We prove a quantum de Finetti theorem for quantum channels, which shows that in the quantum case, the equivalence holds in the asymptotic setting (for large number of test instances). This reveals a natural analogy between classical learning protocols and their quantum counterparts, thus allowing to naturally enquire about standard elements in computational learning theory, such as structural risk minimization, model and sample complexity.
In supervised learning, an inductive learning algorithm extracts general rules from observed training instances, then the rules are applied to test instances. We show that this splitting of training and application arises naturally, in the classical setting, from a simple independence requirement with a physical interpretation of being nonsignaling. Thus, two seemingly different definitions of inductive learning happen to coincide. This follows from the properties of classical information that break down in the quantum setup. We prove a quantum de Finetti theorem for quantum channels, which shows that in the quantum case, the equivalence holds in the asymptotic setting, that is, for large numbers of test instances. This reveals a natural analogy between classical learning protocols and their quantum counterparts, justifying a similar treatment, and allowing us to inquire about standard elements in computational learning theory, such as structural risk minimization and sample complexity.
Statistical learning theory provides the mathematical foundations for understanding generalization from finite data. As quantum computing and quantum machine learning continue to develop, there is increasing interest in whether analogous principles can be formulated for learning settings involving quantum data, quantum models, or quantum computation. This paper offers an introductory perspective on quantum statistical learning theory. We begin by recalling the basic ideas of classical statistical learning theory, including empirical risk minimization, hypothesis classes, generalization, and sample complexity, and then discuss how these concepts must be adapted in the quantum setting. In particular, we distinguish between learning with classical data using quantum algorithms, learning with quantum models, and learning directly from quantum data. We then outline the central learning-theoretic objects in the quantum setting, including quantum hypotheses, measurement-based predictions, population and empirical risk, shot complexity, and information-extraction limitations. A simple illustrative example is used to highlight how finite measurements and quantum uncertainty affect learning performance. We conclude with a discussion of open problems and directions toward a more unified theory of generalization and learnability in quantum learning.
Quantum machine learning models based on parametrized quantum circuits, also called quantum neural networks (QNNs), are considered to be among the most promising candidates for applications on near-term quantum devices. Here we explore the expressivity and inductive bias of QNNs by exploiting an exact mapping from QNNs with inputs x to classical perceptrons acting on x⊗x (generalised to complex inputs). The simplicity of the perceptron architecture allows us to provide clear examples of the shortcomings of current QNN models, and the many barriers they face to becoming useful general-purpose learning algorithms. For example, a QNN with amplitude encoding cannot express the Boolean parity function for n≥3, which is but one of an exponential number of data structures that such a QNN is unable to express. Mapping a QNN to a classical perceptron simplifies training, allowing us to systematically study the inductive biases of other, more expressive embeddings on Boolean data. Several popular embeddings primarily produce an inductive bias towards functions with low class balance, reducing their generalisation performance compared to deep neural network architectures which exhibit much richer inductive biases. We explore two alternate strategies that move beyond standard QNNs. In the first, we use a QNN to help generate a classical DNN-inspired kernel. In the second we draw an analogy to the hierarchical structure of deep neural networks and construct a layered non-linear QNN that is provably fully expressive on Boolean data, while also exhibiting a richer inductive bias than simple QNNs. Finally, we discuss characteristics of the QNN literature that may obscure how hard it is to achieve quantum advantage over deep learning algorithms on classical data.
Abstract Learning problems involve settings in which an algorithm has to make decisions based on data, and possibly side information such as expert knowledge. This study has two main goals. First, it reviews and generalizes different results on the data and model complexity of quantum learning, where the data and/or the algorithm can be quantum, focusing on information‐theoretic techniques. Second, it introduces the notion of copy complexity, which quantifies the number of copies of a quantum state required to achieve a target accuracy level. Copy complexity arises from the destructive nature of quantum measurements, which irreversibly alter the state to be processed, limiting the information that can be extracted about quantum data. As a result, empirical risk minimization is generally inapplicable. The paper presents novel results on the copy complexity for both training and testing. To make the paper self‐contained and approachable by different research communities, an extensive background material is provided on classical results from statistical learning theory, as well as on the distinguishability of quantum states. Throughout, the differences between quantum and classical learning are highlighted by addressing both supervised and unsupervised learning, and extensive pointers are provided to the literature.
Over decades traditional information theory of source and channel coding advances toward learning and effective extraction of information from data. We propose to go one step further and offer a theoretical foundation for learning classical patterns from quantum data. However, there are several roadblocks to lay the groundwork for such a generalization. First, classical data must be replaced by a density operator over a Hilbert space. Hence, deviated from problems such as state tomography, our samples are i.i.d density operators. The second challenge is even more profound since we must realize that our only interaction with a quantum state is through a measurement which - due to no-cloning quantum postulate - loses information after measuring it. With this in mind, we present a quantum counterpart of the well-known probably approximately correct (PAC) framework. Based on that, we propose a quantum analogous of the Empirical Risk Minimization (ERM) algorithm for learning measurement hypothesis classes. Then, we establish upper bounds on the quantum sample complexity quantum concept classes.
Despite years of effort, the quantum machine learning community has only been able to show quantum learning advantages for certain contrived cryptography-inspired datasets in the case of classical data. In this note, we discuss the challenges of finding learning problems that quantum learning algorithms can learn much faster than any classical learning algorithm, and we study how to identify such learning problems. Specifically, we reflect on the main concepts in computational learning theory pertaining to this question, and we discuss how subtle changes in definitions can mean conceptually significantly different tasks, which can either lead to a separation or no separation at all. Moreover, we study existing learning problems with a provable quantum speedup to distill sets of more general and sufficient conditions (i.e., ``checklists'') for a learning problem to exhibit a separation between classical and quantum learners. These checklists are intended to streamline one's approach to proving quantum speedups for learning problems, or to elucidate bottlenecks. Finally, to illustrate its application, we analyze examples of potential separations (i.e., when the learning problem is build from computational separations, or when the data comes from a quantum experiment) through the lens of our approach.