{"paper":{"title":"When is Nontrivial Estimation Possible for Graphons and Stochastic Block Models?","license":"http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":["cs.LG","stat.TH"],"primary_cat":"math.ST","authors_text":"Adam Smith, Audra McMillan","submitted_at":"2016-04-07T04:19:11Z","abstract_excerpt":"Block graphons (also called stochastic block models) are an important and widely-studied class of models for random networks. We provide a lower bound on the accuracy of estimators for block graphons with a large number of blocks. We show that, given only the number $k$ of blocks and an upper bound $\\rho$ on the values (connection probabilities) of the graphon, every estimator incurs error at least on the order of $\\min(\\rho, \\sqrt{\\rho k^2/n^2})$ in the $\\delta_2$ metric with constant probability, in the worst case over graphons. In particular, our bound rules out any nontrivial estimation (t"},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"1604.01871","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}