Kalman Filter for Online Classification of Non-Stationary Data

Michalis Titsias, Alexandre Galashov, Amal Rannen-Triki, Razvan Pascanu, Yee Whye Teh, Jorg Bornschein

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Keywords: online learning, non-stationarity, Kalman filter, continual learning, probabilistic modellling

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TL;DR: Kalman Filter based method applied to non-stationary classification problems with strong empirical performance

Abstract: In Online Continual Learning (OCL) a learning system receives a stream of data and sequentially performs prediction and training steps. Key challenges in OCL include automatic adaptation to the specific non-stationary structure of the data and maintaining appropriate predictive uncertainty. To address these challenges we introduce a probabilistic Bayesian online learning approach that utilizes a (possibly pretrained) neural representation and a state space model over the linear predictor weights. Non-stationarity in the linear predictor weights is modelled using a “parameter drift” transition density, parametrized by a coefficient that quantifies forgetting. Inference in the model is implemented with efficient Kalman filter recursions which track the posterior distribution over the linear weights, while online SGD updates over the transition dynamics coefficient allow for adaptation to the non-stationarity observed in the data. While the framework is developed assuming a linear Gaussian model, we extend it to deal with classification problems and for fine-tuning the deep learning representation. In a set of experiments in multi-class classification using data sets such as CIFAR-100 and CLOC we demonstrate the model's predictive ability and its flexibility in capturing non-stationarity.

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Primary Area: transfer learning, meta learning, and lifelong learning

Submission Number: 5320