Prediction-Powered Inference

Anastasios N. Angelopoulos, Stephen Bates, Clara Fannjiang, Michael I. Jordan, Tijana Zrnic

Published 2023-01-23Version 1

We introduce prediction-powered inference $\unicode{x2013}$ a framework for performing valid statistical inference when an experimental data set is supplemented with predictions from a machine-learning system such as AlphaFold. Our framework yields provably valid conclusions without making any assumptions on the machine-learning algorithm that supplies the predictions. Higher accuracy of the predictions translates to smaller confidence intervals, permitting more powerful inference. Prediction-powered inference yields simple algorithms for computing valid confidence intervals for statistical objects such as means, quantiles, and linear and logistic regression coefficients. We demonstrate the benefits of prediction-powered inference with data sets from proteomics, genomics, electronic voting, remote sensing, census analysis, and ecology.