arXiv (Cornell University)
Uncertainty Quantification via Stable Distribution Propagation
February 2024 • Felix Petersen, Aashwin Mishra, Hilde Kuehne, Christian Borgelt, Oliver Deußen, Mikhail Yurochkin
We propose a new approach for propagating stable probability distributions through neural networks. Our method is based on local linearization, which we show to be an optimal approximation in terms of total variation distance for the ReLU non-linearity. This allows propagating Gaussian and Cauchy input uncertainties through neural networks to quantify their output uncertainties. To demonstrate the utility of propagating distributions, we apply the proposed method to predicting calibrated confidence intervals and s…