about
ISR: Invertible Symbolic Regression (2024) (arxiv.org)
7 points by liamdgray on Aug 17, 2025 | hide | past | pdf | 1 comment on HN

In plain words: It learns short mathematical formulas that connect inputs to outputs and can be run backwards, so one fit works both directions. Unlike typical black-box networks, it gives readable equations and handled density estimation and an ocean problem of guessing seabed properties from sound.

Abstract · ISR: Invertible Symbolic Regression

We introduce an Invertible Symbolic Regression (ISR) method. It is a machine learning technique that generates analytical relationships between inputs and outputs of a given dataset via invertible maps (or architectures). The proposed ISR method naturally combines the principles of Invertible Neural Networks (INNs) and Equation Learner (EQL), a neural network-based symbolic architecture for function learning. In particular, we transform the affine coupling blocks of INNs into a symbolic framework, resulting in an end-to-end differentiable symbolic invertible architecture that allows for efficient gradient-based learning. The proposed ISR framework also relies on sparsity promoting regularization, allowing the discovery of concise and interpretable invertible expressions. We show that ISR can serve as a (symbolic) normalizing flow for density estimation tasks. Furthermore, we highlight its practical applicability in solving inverse problems, including a benchmark inverse kinematics problem, and notably, a geoacoustic inversion problem in oceanography aimed at inferring posterior distributions of underlying seabed parameters from acoustic signals.

Tony Tohme, Mohammad Javad Khojasteh, Mohsen Sadr, Florian Meyer, Kamal Youcef-Toumi
arXiv:2405.06848 · cs.LG, cs.AI, cs.IT, stat.ML · submitted May 10, 2024
abstract · pdf · html

add comment on HN

Abstract: "We introduce an Invertible Symbolic Regression (ISR) method. It is a machine learning technique that generates analytical relationships between inputs and outputs of a given dataset via invertible maps (or architectures). The proposed ISR method naturally combines the principles of Invertible Neural Networks (INNs) and Equation Learner (EQL), a neural network-based symbolic architecture for function learning. In particular, we transform the affine coupling blocks of INNs into a symbolic framework, resulting in an end-to-end differentiable symbolic invertible architecture that allows for efficient gradient-based learning. The proposed ISR framework also relies on sparsity promoting regularization, allowing the discovery of concise and interpretable invertible expressions. We show that ISR can serve as a (symbolic) normalizing flow for density estimation tasks. Furthermore, we highlight its practical applicability in solving inverse problems, including a benchmark inverse kinematics problem, and notably, a geoacoustic inversion problem in oceanography aimed at inferring posterior distributions of underlying seabed parameters from acoustic signals."