Assisted Learning for Organizations with Limited Imbalanced Data

Cheng Chen, Jiaying Zhou, Jie Ding, Yi Zhou, Bhavya Kailkhura

Keywords: Assisted learning, Deep learning, Reinforcement learning, Optimization, Heterogeneous learner, Imbalanced data

Abstract: We develop an assisted learning framework for assisting organization-level learners to improve their learning performance with limited and imbalanced data. In particular, learners at the organization level usually have sufficient computation resource, but are subject to stringent collaboration policy and information privacy. Their limited imbalanced data often cause biased inference and sub-optimal decision-making. In our assisted learning framework, an organizational learner purchases assistance service from a service provider and aims to enhance its model performance within a few assistance rounds. We develop effective stochastic training algorithms for assisted deep learning and assisted reinforcement learning. Different from existing distributed algorithms that need to frequently transmit gradients or models, our framework allows the learner to only occasionally share information with the service provider, and still achieve a near-oracle model as if all the data were centralized.

One-sentence Summary: We develop an assisted learning framework for assisting organization-level learners to improve their learning performance with limited and imbalanced data.