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Clustering is a fundamental primitive in unsupervised learning which gives rise to a rich class of computationally-challenging inference tasks. In this work, we focus on the canonical task of clustering d-dimensional Gaussian mixtures with unknown (and possibly degenerate) covariance. Recent works (Ghosh et al. ’20; Mao, Wein ’21; Davis, Diaz, Wang ’21) have established lower bounds against the class of low-degree polynomial methods and the sum-of-squares (SoS) hierarchy for recovering certain hidden structures planted in Gaussian clustering instances. Prior work on many similar inference tasks portends that such lower bounds strongly suggest the presence of an inherent statistical-to-computational gap for clustering, that is, a parameter regime where the clustering task is statistically possible but no polynomial-time algorithm succeeds. One special case of the clustering task we consider is equivalent to the problem of finding a planted hypercube vector in an otherwise random subspace. We show that, perhaps surprisingly, this particular clustering model does not exhibit a statistical-to-computational gap, despite the aforementioned low-degree and SoS lower bounds. To achieve this, we give an algorithm based on Lenstra–Lenstra–Lovász lattice basis reduction which achieves the statistically-optimal sample complexity of d + 1 samples. This result extends the class of problems whose conjectured statistical-to-computational gaps can be “closed” by “brittle” polynomial-time algorithms, highlighting the crucial but subtle role of noise in the onset of statistical-to-computational gaps. 

We show a simple reduction which demonstrates the cryptographic hardness of learning a single periodic neuron over isotropic Gaussian distributions in the pres- ence of noise. More precisely, our reduction shows that any polynomial-time algorithm (not necessarily gradient-based) for learning such functions under small noise implies a polynomial-time quantum algorithm for solving worst-case lattice problems, whose hardness form the foundation of lattice-based cryptography. Our core hard family of functions, which are well-approximated by one-layer neural networks, take the general form of a univariate periodic function applied to an affine projection of the data. These functions have appeared in previous seminal works which demonstrate their hardness against gradient-based (Shamir’18), and Statisti- cal Query (SQ) algorithms (Song et al.’17). We show that if (polynomially) small noise is added to the labels, the intractability of learning these functions applies to all polynomial-time algorithms, beyond gradient-based and SQ algorithms, under the aforementioned cryptographic assumptions. Moreover, we demonstrate the necessity of noise in the hardness result by designing a polynomial-time algorithm for learning certain families of such functions under exponentially small adversarial noise. Our proposed algorithm is not a gradient-based or an SQ algorithm, but is rather based on the celebrated Lenstra-Lenstra-Lovász (LLL) lattice basis reduction algorithm. Furthermore, in the absence of noise, this algorithm can be directly applied to solve CLWE detection (Bruna et al.’21) and phase retrieval with an optimal sample complexity of d + 1 samples. In the former case, this improves upon the quadratic-in-d sample complexity required in (Bruna et al.’21). 

We consider the high-dimensional linear regression problem, where the algorithmic goal is to efficiently infer an unknown feature vector $$\beta^*\in\mathbb{R}^p$$ from its linear measurements, using a small number $$n$$ of samples. Unlike most of the literature, we make no sparsity assumption on $$\beta^*$$, but instead adopt a different regularization: In the noiseless setting, we assume $$\beta^*$$ consists of entries, which are either rational numbers with a common denominator $$Q\in\mathbb{Z}^+$$ (referred to as $Q-$$rationality); or irrational numbers taking values in a rationally independent set of bounded cardinality, known to learner; collectively called as the mixed-range assumption. Using a novel combination of the Partial Sum of Least Squares (PSLQ) integer relation detection, and the Lenstra-Lenstra-Lov\'asz (LLL) lattice basis reduction algorithms, we propose a polynomial-time algorithm which provably recovers a $$\beta^*\in\mathbb{R}^p$ enjoying the mixed-range assumption, from its linear measurements $$Y=X\beta^*\in\mathbb{R}^n$$ for a large class of distributions for the random entries of $$X$$, even with one measurement ($n=1$). In the noisy setting, we propose a polynomial-time, lattice-based algorithm, which recovers a $$\beta^*\in\mathbb{R}^p$$ enjoying the $Q-$rationality property, from its noisy measurements $$Y=X\beta^*+W\in\mathbb{R}^n$$, even from a single sample ($n=1$). We further establish that for large $$Q$$, and normal noise, this algorithm tolerates information-theoretically optimal level of noise. We then apply these ideas to develop a polynomial-time, single-sample algorithm for the phase retrieval problem. Our methods address the single-sample ($n=1$) regime, where the sparsity-based methods such as the Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO) and the Basis Pursuit are known to fail. Furthermore, our results also reveal algorithmic connections between the high-dimensional linear regression problem, and the integer relation detection, randomized subset-sum, and shortest vector problems.