Guest Column: PAC Learning is just Bipartite Matching (Sort of)

The main goal of this article is to convince you, the reader, that supervised learning in the Probably Approximately Correct (PAC) model is closely related to - of all things - bipartite matching! En-route from PAC learning to bipartite matching, I will overview a particular transductive model of learning, and associated one-inclusion graphs, which can be viewed as a generalization of some of the hat puzzles that are popular in recreational mathematics. Whereas this transductive model is far from new, it has recently seen a resurgence of interest as a tool for tackling deep questions in learning theory. In hindsight, a secondary purpose of this article could be as a (biased) tutorial on the connections between the PAC and transductive models of learning.

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Publication Details

Journal
ACM SIGACT News
Published
2025-06-06
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1145/3744715.3744721
Primary Topic
Machine Learning and Algorithms
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
0.00
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Guest Column: PAC Learning is just Bipartite Matching (Sort of)

Shaddin Dughmi
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ACM SIGACT News
Machine Learning and Algorithms
article

Guest Column: PAC Learning is just Bipartite Matching (Sort of)

Shaddin Dughmi
article en

Abstract

The main goal of this article is to convince you, the reader, that supervised learning in the Probably Approximately Correct (PAC) model is closely related to - of all things - bipartite matching! En-route from PAC learning to bipartite matching, I will overview a particular transductive model of learning, and associated one-inclusion graphs, which can be viewed as a generalization of some of the hat puzzles that are popular in recreational mathematics. Whereas this transductive model is far from new, it has recently seen a resurgence of interest as a tool for tackling deep questions in learning theory. In hindsight, a secondary purpose of this article could be as a (biased) tutorial on the connections between the PAC and transductive models of learning.

ACM SIGACT NewsVol. 56(2)
University of Southern California (US)
Openalex Percentile: Top 94%
Machine Learning and Algorithms
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