We give new quantum algorithms for evaluating composed functions whose inputs may be shared between bottom-level gates. Let @math be a Boolean function and consider a function @math obtained by applying @math to conjunctions of possibly overlapping subsets of @math variables. If @math has quantum query complexity @math , we give an algorithm for evaluating @math using @math quantum queries. This improves on the bound of @math that follows by treating each conjunction independently, and is tight for worst-case choices of @math . Using completely different techniques, we prove a similar tight composition theorem for the approximate degree of @math . By recursively applying our composition theorems, we obtain a nearly optimal @math upper bound on the quantum query complexity and approximate degree of linear-size depth- @math AC @math circuits. As a consequence, such circuits can be PAC learned in subexponential time, even in the challenging agnostic setting. Prior to our work, a subexponential-time algorithm was not known even for linear-size depth-3 AC @math circuits. We also show that any substantially faster learning algorithm will require fundamentally new techniques.
Fort now and Klivans proved the following relationship between efficient learning algorithms and circuit lower bounds: if a class of boolean circuits C contained in P poly of Boolean is exactly learnable with membership and equivalence queries in polynomial-time, then EXP^NP is not contained in C (the class EXP^NP was subsequently improved to EXP by Hitchcock and Harkins). In this paper, we improve on these results and show * If C is exactly learnable with membership and equivalence queries in polynomial-time, then DTIME(n^ (1) ) is not contained in C. We obtain even stronger consequences if C is learnable in the mistake-bounded model, in which case we prove an average-case hardness result against C. * If C is learnable in polynomial time in the PAC model then PSPACE is not contained in C, unless PSPACE is contained in BPP. Removing this extra assumption from the statement of the theorem would provide an unconditional separation of PSPACE and BPP. * If C is efficiently learnable in the Correlational Statistical Query (CSQ) model, we show that there exists an explicit function f that is average-case hard for circuits in C. This result provides stronger average-case hardness guarantees than those obtained by SQ-dimension arguments ( 1993). We also obtain a non-constructive extension of this result to the stronger Statistical Query (SQ) model. Similar results hold in the case where the learning algorithm runs in sub exponential time. Our proofs regarding exact and mistake-bounded learning are simple and self-contained, yield explicit hard functions, and show how to use mistake-bounded learners to "diagonalize"' over families of polynomial-size circuits. Our consequences for PAC learning lead to new proofs of Karp-Lipton-style collapse results, and the lower bounds from SQ learning make use of recent work relating combinatorial discrepancy to the existence of hard-on-average functions.  Despite decades of intensive research, efficient - or even sub-exponential time - distribution-free PAC learning algorithms are not known for many important Boolean function classes. In this work we suggest a new perspective on these learning problems, inspired by a surge of recent research in complexity theory, in which the goal is to determine whether and how much of a savings over a naive 2^n runtime can be achieved. We establish a range of exploratory results towards this end. In more detail, (1) We first observe that a simple approach building on known uniform-distribution learning results gives non-trivial distribution-free learning algorithms for several well-studied classes including AC0, arbitrary functions of a few linear threshold functions (LTFs), and AC0 augmented with mod_p gates. (2) Next we present an approach, based on the method of random restrictions from circuit complexity, which can be used to obtain several distribution-free learning algorithms that do not appear to be achievable by approach (1) above. The results achieved in this way include learning algorithms with non-trivial savings for LTF-of-AC0 circuits and improved savings for learning parity-of-AC0 circuits. (3) Finally, our third contribution is a generic technique for converting lower bounds proved using Neciporuk's method to learning algorithms with non-trivial savings. This technique, which is the most involved of our three approaches, yields distribution-free learning algorithms for a range of classes where previously even non-trivial uniform-distribution learning algorithms were not known; these classes include full-basis formulas, branching programs, span programs, etc. up to some fixed polynomial size.