Given a random variable $Y$ and the typical squared loss function: $$L(Y,\hat{Y}) = (Y-\hat{Y})^2$$ the minimizer for expected loss $E[L(Y,\hat{Y})]$ is know to be the mean, $\hat{Y} = E[Y] = \mu$. If we take $n$ $IID$ samples from the distribution of $Y$, we can describe an **Empirical Risk Minimization(ERM)** procedure: $$\hat{Y} = argmin_{Y^*} \sum_i^n (Y_i - Y^*)^2$$ $$\implies \hat{Y} = \frac{1}{n}\sum_i^nY_i$$ $$E[\hat{Y}] = \mu$$ hence, it is consistent. Now let's assume that $Y \sim N(0,\sigma^2)$ and our loss function is as follows: $$L(Y,\hat{Y}) = e^{2(Y-\hat{Y})} - 2(Y-\hat{Y}) - 1$$ The mimizer for expected loss $E[L(Y,\hat{Y})]$ can be shown to be $\hat{Y} = \sigma^2$ using the fact that $e^{2Y}$ is lognormal with $E[e^{2Y}] = e^{2\sigma^2}$. If we again apply **ERM** procedure: $$\hat{Y} = argmin_{Y^*} \sum_i^n L(Y_i,Y^*)$$ $$\implies \hat{Y} = -\frac{1}{2} ln \frac{n}{\sum_i^n e^{2Y_i}}$$ $$E[\hat{Y}] \neq \sigma^2$$ I would like to understand why the procedure is not consistent in this case. Which assumptions of **ERM** am I violating?