Using proxies to enable on-device machine learning

A non-transitory computer readable medium programmed with instructions that, when executed by a processing system, perform operations, comprising:

• collecting private user data on the client device to produce an initial data distribution for use with an application;
• performing a divergence estimate between the initial data distribution and corresponding data distributions of a set of proxy models;
• selecting a proxy model from the set of proxy models having a low divergence between the initial data distribution and a data distribution of the selected proxy model, the low divergence being below a threshold value;
• and
• associating the selected proxy model with the application such that the selected proxy model becomes a user predictive model for the application.

A system comprising:

• a processing system coupled to a memory programmed with executable instructions that, when executed by the processing system perform operations, comprising:
• collecting private user data on the client device to produce an initial data distribution for use with an application;
• performing a divergence estimate between the initial data distribution and corresponding data distributions of a set of proxy models;
• selecting a proxy model from the plurality of proxy models having a low divergence between the initial data distribution and a data distribution of the selected proxy model, the low divergence being below a threshold value;
• and
• associating the selected proxy model with the application such that the selected proxy model becomes a user predictive model for the application.

A computer-implemented method practiced on a server comprising at least one hardware processor, the method comprising:

• training a plurality of models based on at least one of anonymized data, de-identified data, or voluntarily-provided data of identified users, collected on the server for an application used by one or more client devices;
• performing a divergence estimate between pairs of models in the plurality models to identify a subset of the plurality of models for inclusion in a set of proxy models;
• designating one of the models in the set of proxy models as a generic proxy model;
• transmitting the set of proxy models to one or more client devices.