Efficient distribution-free learning of probabilistic concepts

Abstract

A model of machine learning in which the concept to be learned may exhibit uncertain or probabilistic behavior is investigated. Such probabilistic concepts (or p-concepts) may arise in situations such as weather prediction, where the measured variables and their accuracy are insufficient to determine the outcome with certainty. It is required that learning algorithms be both efficient and general in the sense that they perform well for a wide class of p-concepts and for any distribution over the domain. Many efficient algorithms for learning natural classes of p-concepts are given, and an underlying theory of learning p-concepts is developed in detail.<>