Write for all coordinates except , let be an independent random variable with the same distribution as , and let . Three equivalent forms of the Efron–Stein inequality are
for arbitrary square-integrable measurable with respect to , and
The first is the sharp choice within the second because conditional expectation is the least-squares projection. The first and third right sides are equal because two conditionally independent copies have expected squared difference twice their conditional variance.
The vector is Jointly Gaussian. Assuming , Gaussian conditional independence gives
Thus the required condition is . Under it, conditioning on supplies no further information after , and the Gaussian process regression posterior is
Both the conditional expectation and conditional variance depend only on ; neither contains or .