Machlanski, Damian and Samothrakis, Spyridon and Clarke, Paul (2024) Robustness of Algorithms for Causal Structure Learning to Hyperparameter Choice. In: Third Conference on Causal Learning and Reasoning, 2024-04-01 - 2024-04-03, Carnesale Commons, UC Los Angeles, California, USA.
Machlanski, Damian and Samothrakis, Spyridon and Clarke, Paul (2024) Robustness of Algorithms for Causal Structure Learning to Hyperparameter Choice. In: Third Conference on Causal Learning and Reasoning, 2024-04-01 - 2024-04-03, Carnesale Commons, UC Los Angeles, California, USA.
Machlanski, Damian and Samothrakis, Spyridon and Clarke, Paul (2024) Robustness of Algorithms for Causal Structure Learning to Hyperparameter Choice. In: Third Conference on Causal Learning and Reasoning, 2024-04-01 - 2024-04-03, Carnesale Commons, UC Los Angeles, California, USA.
Abstract
Hyperparameters play a critical role in machine learning. Hyperparameter tuning can make the difference between state-of-the-art and poor prediction performance for any algorithm, but it is particularly challenging for structure learning due to its unsupervised nature. As a result, hyperparameter tuning is often neglected in favour of using the default values provided by a particular implementation of an algorithm. While there have been numerous studies on performance evaluation of causal discovery algorithms, how hyperparameters affect individual algorithms, as well as the choice of the best algorithm for a specific problem, has not been studied in depth before. This work addresses this gap by investigating the influence of hyperparameters on causal structure learning tasks. Specifically, we perform an empirical evaluation of hyperparameter selection for some seminal learning algorithms on datasets of varying levels of complexity. We find that, while the choice of algorithm remains crucial to obtaining state-of-the-art performance, hyperparameter selection in ensemble settings strongly influences the choice of algorithm, in that a poor choice of hyperparameters can lead to analysts using algorithms which do not give state-of-the-art performance for their data.
Item Type: | Conference or Workshop Item (Paper) |
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Uncontrolled Keywords: | Hyperparameters; model selection; causal discovery; structure learning; performance evaluation; misspecification; robustness |
Divisions: | Faculty of Science and Health Faculty of Social Sciences Faculty of Science and Health > Computer Science and Electronic Engineering, School of Faculty of Social Sciences > Institute for Social and Economic Research |
SWORD Depositor: | Unnamed user with email elements@essex.ac.uk |
Depositing User: | Unnamed user with email elements@essex.ac.uk |
Date Deposited: | 02 Aug 2024 11:17 |
Last Modified: | 07 Aug 2024 16:16 |
URI: | http://repository.essex.ac.uk/id/eprint/37946 |
Available files
Filename: Hyperparameters_in_Structure_Learning__CLeaR_2024_.pdf
Licence: Creative Commons: Attribution 4.0