The Value of Mechanistic Priors in Sequential Decision Making

Abstract

Hybrid mechanistic models, physical priors with learned residuals, promise to reduce the data required for good decisions, but have no computable criterion to test this. We characterize the value of mechanistic priors in sequential decision-making within both asymptotic and burn-in regimes. To formalize this, we introduce the mechanistic information of a model: the mutual information between the model's recommended policy $\hat{\pi}$ and the true optimal policy $\pi^*$, bounded via a centered, occupancy-weighted bias. In the asymptotic regime (large $N$), matched bounds reveal that Bayesian regret scales with the residual entropy $H_{\mathrm{mech}}$, delivering a theoretical sample complexity reduction of $H(\mu)/H_{\mathrm{mech}}$ compared to an uninformed baseline. We further provide a computable pre-trial model certificate. Complementarily, in the clinically relevant burn-in regime (small $N$), we establish a lower bound on the penalty incurred by confidently wrong priors. We demonstrate both the asymptotic and burn-in bounds on an illustrative in-silico 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) chemotherapy plant whose structure follows published FOLFOX pharmacokinetics. The hybrid prior reduces cumulative regret by $1.79\times$ relative to standard body-surface-area dosing and $1.85\times$ relative to an uninformed learner, and remains below both under every calibration bias tested. Finally, we show that priors sensitive to distribution shift can lose half of their mechanistic information under a small distribution shift, motivating physically grounded priors for safety-critical applications.