arXivDaily arXiv每日学术速递 周一至周五更新
arXiv 2408.04441stat.APcs.SI
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近似干扰网络下社交平台中的因果推断

Causal Inference in Social Platforms Under Approximate Interference Networks

Yiming Jiang, Lu Deng, Yong Wang, He Wang

AI总结:

针对社交平台中网络干扰结构未知导致总处理效应估计不可靠的问题,本文提出代理网络框架与伪逆估计器,证明更紧的渐近方差界并改进方差估计,在超5000万用户实验中验证了其有效性。

摘要:

估计社交平台中新功能的总处理效应(TTE)对于理解其对用户行为的影响至关重要。然而,由用户交互产生的网络干扰的存在,往往使这一估计过程变得复杂。实验者通常在完全捕捉这种干扰的复杂结构方面面临挑战,从而导致估计结果不够可靠。为了解决这一问题,我们提出了一种利用代理网络和伪逆估计器的新方法。我们的贡献可总结如下:(1)我们引入了代理网络框架,该框架模拟了实验者利用可观测数据构建真实干扰网络近似结构的实际情形。(2)我们研究了伪逆估计器在该框架下的表现,揭示了代理网络引入的偏差-方差权衡。我们证明了相比先前研究更紧的渐近方差界,并提出了一种优于原始估计器的改进方差估计器。(3)我们将伪逆估计器应用于一个涉及超过5000万用户的真实实验,证明了其与均值差估计器结合使用时在检测网络干扰方面的有效性。我们的研究旨在弥合理论文献与实际实施之间的差距,为在存在网络干扰和未知干扰结构的情况下估计总处理效应提供一种解决方案。

英文摘要:

Estimating the total treatment effect (TTE) of a new feature in social platforms is crucial for understanding its impact on user behavior. However, the presence of network interference, which arises from user interactions, often complicates this estimation process. Experimenters typically face challenges in fully capturing the intricate structure of this interference, leading to less reliable estimates. To address this issue, we propose a novel approach that leverages surrogate networks and the pseudo inverse estimator. Our contributions can be summarized as follows: (1) We introduce the surrogate network framework, which simulates the practical situation where experimenters build an approximation of the true interference network using observable data. (2) We investigate the performance of the pseudo inverse estimator within this framework, revealing a bias-variance trade-off introduced by the surrogate network. We demonstrate a tighter asymptotic variance bound compared to previous studies and propose an enhanced variance estimator outperforming the original estimator. (3) We apply the pseudo inverse estimator to a real experiment involving over 50 million users, demonstrating its effectiveness in detecting network interference when combined with the difference-in-means estimator. Our research aims to bridge the gap between theoretical literature and practical implementation, providing a solution for estimating TTE in the presence of network interference and unknown interference structures.

机构、总结、中文摘要均由AI分析而来,可能存在错误,请以论文正文为准。

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