Josef Dick, Michael Feischl, Fabian Zehetgrubercs.LG math.NA
We establish high-probability bounds for mixed input derivatives of wide random neural networks whose activation derivatives satisfy a factorial growth bound. Our main result specializes these estimates to $\tanh$ networks with Xavier initialization. A direct deterministic analysis based on Euclidean operator norms of the weight matrices yields derivative bounds that generally grow exponentially with the depth. We show that this growth can be substantially improved for sufficiently wide Gaussian networks by isolating the term that is linear in the highest-order derivative and controlling the corresponding tangent directions by measurable finite nets. For scalar-output $\tanh$ networks with Gaussian weights and Xavier initialization, we prove that there exist constants $C,C_0,C_1>0$ such that, whenever the common hidden width satisfies $n \geq C\left(L^3n_0^2(1+\log n_0)+L^2\left(1+\log(L/η)\right)\right)$, then, with probability at least $1-η$, the estimate $\left|D^u\mathcal{R}_{Φ^{(L)}}(x)\right| \leq C_0 |u|! (C_1L)^{|u|-1}\prod_{j\in u}β_j(η,n_0)$ holds simultaneously for every non-empty $u\subseteq[n_0]$ and every $x\in[0,1]^{n_0}$. Thus, the first-order derivative bound is independent of the depth, while a square-free mixed derivative of order $|u|$ grows at most polynomially as $L^{|u|-1}$, apart from the coordinate factors. As consequences, we obtain high-probability bounds for the Euclidean Lipschitz constant and for weighted Sobolev norms of the network realization. The latter connect the derivative estimates to quasi-Monte Carlo integration and indicate how such regularity can enter the analysis of QMC-based training.
We develop analytical and particle-based methods for uncertainty propagation in random neural network models, where both the inputs and network parameters are allowed to be random. Building on the piecewise-linear structure of the Leaky ReLU activation function, we derive a local approximation of the neural network output with respect to perturbations in both its inputs and parameters. This approximation is exact for perturbations that preserve the network activation pattern, and it allows us to compute analytical expressions for the probability density function and characteristic function of the network output, together with closed-form approximations for its mean and covariance. We extend this uncertainty propagation framework to autonomous dynamical systems whose one-step evolution map is represented by a random neural network. Repeated application of this map defines an autoregressive model, for which we derive recursive equations to propagate uncertainty in both the state and network parameters over time. These equations explicitly account for the state-parameter cross-covariance that develops under successive iterations of the network. Numerical experiments on the Lorenz-63 system and the Kuramoto-Sivashinsky equation demonstrate accurate uncertainty propagation through the predictability horizon and the applicability of the proposed framework to high-dimensional dynamical systems.