When Won′t Membership Queries Help?

Abstract

We investigate cryptographic limitations on the power of membership queries to help with concept learning. We extend the notion of prediction-preserving reductions to prediction with membership queries. We exhibit a number of reductions and show several prediction problems to be complete for different complexity classes. We show that assuming the intractability of (1) quadratic residues module a composite, (2) inverting RSA encryption, or (3) factoring Blum integers, there is no polynomial time prediction algorithm with membership queries for Boolean formulas, constant depth threshold circuits, 3 μ-Boolean formulas, finite unions or intersections of DFAs, 2-way DFAs, NFAs, or CFGs. Also, we show that if there exist one-way functions that cannot be inverted by polynomial-sized circuits, then CNF or DNF formulas and convex polytopes intersected with the Boolean hypercube are either polynomial time predictable without membership queries, or they are not polynomial time predictable even with membership queries; so, in effect, membership queries will not help with predicting CNF or DNF formulas. © 1995 Academic Press. All rights reserved.