In plain words: A plug-in layer measures the shape of data—its holes and connected pieces—and sends gradients back so a network can respect it. Unlike fixed shape features that can't guide training, it can shape generated outputs or spot inputs that fool a network.
Abstract · A Topology Layer for Machine Learning
Topology applied to real world data using persistent homology has started to find applications within machine learning, including deep learning. We present a differentiable topology layer that computes persistent homology based on level set filtrations and edge-based filtrations. We present three novel applications: the topological layer can (i) regularize data reconstruction or the weights of machine learning models, (ii) construct a loss on the output of a deep generative network to incorporate topological priors, and (iii) perform topological adversarial attacks on deep networks trained with persistence features. The code (www.github.com/bruel-gabrielsson/TopologyLayer) is publicly available and we hope its availability will facilitate the use of persistent homology in deep learning and other gradient based applications.
Rickard Brüel-Gabrielsson, Bradley J. Nelson, Anjan Dwaraknath, Primoz Skraba, Leonidas J. Guibas, Gunnar Carlsson
arXiv:1905.12200 · cs.LG, math.AT, stat.ML · submitted May 29, 2019 · updated Apr 24, 2020
abstract · pdf · html