Fast Hyperboloid Decision Tree Algorithms

Philippe Chlenski, Ethan Turok, Antonio Khalil Moretti, Itsik Pe'er

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Keywords: hyperbolic space, random forest, decision tree

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TL;DR: Decision trees and random forests with geodesic splits work well in hyperbolic space

Abstract: Hyperbolic geometry is gaining traction in machine learning due to its capacity to effectively capture hierarchical structures in real-world data. Hyperbolic spaces, where neighborhoods grow exponentially, offer substantial advantages and have consistently delivered state-of-the-art results across diverse applications. However, hyperbolic classifiers often grapple with computational challenges. Methods reliant on Riemannian optimization frequently exhibit sluggishness, stemming from the increased computational demands of operations on Riemannian manifolds. In response to these challenges, we present HyperDT, a novel extension of decision tree algorithms into hyperbolic space. Crucially, HyperDT eliminates the need for computationally intensive Riemannian optimization, numerically unstable exponential and logarithmic maps, or pairwise comparisons between points by leveraging inner products to adapt Euclidean decision tree algorithms to hyperbolic space. Our approach is conceptually straightforward and maintains constant-time decision complexity while mitigating the scalability issues inherent in high-dimensional Euclidean spaces. Building upon HyperDT, we introduce HyperRF, a hyperbolic random forest model. Extensive benchmarking across diverse datasets underscores the superior performance of these models, providing a swift, precise, accurate, and user-friendly toolkit for hyperbolic data analysis.

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Primary Area: unsupervised, self-supervised, semi-supervised, and supervised representation learning

Submission Number: 6504