In machine learning, reliable predictions and uncertainty quantification are critical for decision-making, particularly in safety-sensitive domains like healthcare. Model calibration ensures predictions accurately reflect true outcomes, making them robust against extreme over- or underestimation and facilitating trustworthy decision-making. Predictive inference methods, such as Conformal Prediction (CP), offer a model-agnostic and distribution-free approach to uncertainty quantification by generating prediction intervals that contain the true outcome with a user-specified probability. However, standard CP only provides marginal coverage, averaging performance across all contexts. Achieving context-conditional coverage, which accounts for specific decision-making scenarios, typically requires additional assumptions. As a result, researchers have developed methods to provide weaker but practical forms of conditional validity, such as prediction-conditional coverage.
Recent advancements have explored different approaches to conditional validity and calibration. Techniques like Mondrian CP apply context-specific binning schemes or regression trees to construct prediction intervals but often need more calibrated point predictions and self-calibrated intervals. SC-CP addresses these limitations using isotonic calibration to discretize the predictor adaptively, achieving improved conformity scores, calibrated predictions, and self-calibrated intervals. Additionally, methods like Multivalid-CP and difficulty-aware CP further refine prediction intervals by conditioning on class labels, prediction set sizes, or difficulty estimates. While approaches like Venn-Abers calibration and its regression extensions have been explored, challenges persist in balancing model accuracy, interval width, and conditional validity without increasing computational overhead.
Researchers from the University of Washington, UC Berkeley, and UCSF have introduced Self-Calibrating Conformal Prediction. This method combines Venn-Abers calibration and conformal prediction to deliver both calibrated point predictions and prediction intervals with finite-sample validity conditional on these predictions. Extending the Venn-Abers method from binary classification to regression enhances prediction accuracy and interval efficiency. Their framework analyzes the interplay between model calibration and predictive inference, ensuring valid coverage while improving practical performance. Real-world experiments demonstrate its effectiveness, offering a robust and efficient alternative to feature-conditional validity in decision-making tasks requiring both point and interval predictions.
Self-Calibrating Conformal Prediction (SC-CP) is a modified version of CP that ensures both finite-sample validity and post-hoc applicability while achieving perfect calibration. It introduces Venn-Abers calibration, an extension of isotonic regression, to produce calibrated predictions in regression tasks. Venn-Abers generates prediction sets that are guaranteed to include a perfectly calibrated point prediction by iteratively calibrating over imputed outcomes and leveraging isotonic regression. SC-CP further conformalizes these predictions, constructing intervals centered around the calibrated outputs with quantifiable uncertainty. This approach effectively balances calibration and predictive performance, especially in small samples, by accounting for overfitting and uncertainty through adaptive intervals.
The MEPS dataset predicts healthcare utilization while evaluating prediction-conditional validity across sensitive subgroups. The dataset comprises 15,656 samples with 139 features, including race as the sensitive attribute. The data is split into training, calibration, and test sets, and XGBoost trains the initial model under two settings: poorly calibrated (untransformed outcomes) and well-calibrated (transformed outcomes). SC-CP is compared against Marginal, Mondrian, CQR, and Kernel methods. Results show SC-CP achieves narrower intervals, improved calibration, and fairer predictions with reduced subgroup calibration errors. Unlike baselines, SC-CP adapts to heteroscedasticity, achieving desired coverage and interval efficiency.
In conclusion, SC-CP effectively integrates Venn-Abers calibration with Conformal Prediction to deliver calibrated point predictions and prediction intervals with finite-sample validity. By extending Venn-Abers calibration to regression tasks, SC-CP ensures robust prediction accuracy while improving interval efficiency and coverage conditional on forecasts. Experimental results, particularly on the MEPS dataset, highlight its ability to adapt to heteroscedasticity, achieve narrower prediction intervals, and maintain fairness across subgroups. Compared to traditional methods, SC-CP offers a practical and computationally efficient approach, making it particularly suitable for safety-critical applications requiring reliable uncertainty quantification and trustworthy predictions.
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