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arXiv · 2608.06363

An Optimal Agnostic PAC Algorithm

Markus Engelund Mathiasen·Jian Qian·Nikita Zhivotovskiy
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Abstract

Let $H\subseteq\{-1,+1\}^X$ be a class of finite VC dimension $d\ge1$. Writing $L$ for the binary risk and $L^*=\min_{h\in H}L(h)$, we construct a learner achieving the statistically optimal risk bound: from an i.i.d.\ sample of size $n$, for every $0<\delta\le 1/2$, with probability at least $1-\delta$, \[ L(\widehat h) \le L^*+ 7\cdot10^8\left( \sqrt{\frac{L^*(d+\log(1/\delta))}{n}} +\frac{d+\log(1/\delta)}{n} \right). \] This settles the sample complexity of agnostic PAC learning up to universal constants at every fixed $L^*$, matching the lower bounds of Devroye, Gy\"orfi, and Lugosi [A Probabilistic Theory of Pattern Recognition, Springer, 1996].

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Markus Engelund Mathiasen, Jian Qian, Nikita Zhivotovskiy. 2026-08-06. An Optimal Agnostic PAC Algorithm. https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.06363

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