Solvable model for the linear separability of structured data

Linear separability, a core concept in supervised machine learning, refers to whether the labels of a data set can be captured by the simplest possible machine: a linear classifier. In order to quantify linear separability beyond this single bit of information, one needs models of data structure parameterized by interpretable quantities, and tractable analytically. Here, I address one class of models with these properties, and show how a combinatorial method allows for the computation, in a mean field approximation, of two useful descriptors of linear separability, one of which is closely related to the popular concept of storage capacity. I motivate the need for multiple metrics by quantifying linear separability in a simple synthetic data set with controlled correlations between the points and their labels, as well as in the benchmark data set MNIST, where the capacity alone paints an incomplete picture. The analytical results indicate a high degree of “universality”, or robustness with respect to the microscopic parameters controlling data structure.