Mutual information quantifies the dependence between two random variables and remains invariant under diffeomorphisms. In this paper, we explore the pointwise mutual information profile, an extension of mutual information that maintains this invariance. We analytically describe the profiles of multivariate normal distributions and introduce the family of fine distributions, for which the profile can be accurately approximated using Monte Carlo methods. We then show how fine distributions can be used to study the limitations of existing mutual information estimators, investigate the behavior of neural critics used in variational estimators, and understand the effect of experimental outliers on mutual information estimation. Finally, we show how fine distributions can be used to obtain model-based Bayesian estimates of mutual information, suitable for problems with available domain expertise in which uncertainty quantification is necessary.

本文研究相互信息、逐点相互信息轮廓、多元正态分布、蒙特卡洛方法，该研究还使用精细分布来研究现有相互信息估计器的局限性、变分估计器中使用的神经评论家的行为以及实验异常值对相互信息估计的影响，并展示了如何使用精细分布来获得基于模型的贝叶斯估计的相互信息，适用于具有领域专业知识且需要不确定性量化的问题。

混合物和神经评论家：关于细度分布的点互信息特征