Improves VAE training by refining variational parameters with BSVI.
problem Amortized inference in VAEs leads to suboptimal variational parameters and the amortization gap.
method Proposes BSVI, a refinement procedure using SVI's importance weights.
result Training VAEs with BSVI yields improved performance compared to SVI.
New method improves generalization of VAEs by reducing overfitting.
problem Generalization issues in VAEs overfitting to training data.
method Proposed a new training objective to improve amortized inference.
result Improved performance in image modeling and lossless compression.
A-VI can approximate F-VI under certain conditions, improving inference in some models.
problem Approximate Bayesian inference using factorized distributions.
method Amortized variational inference (A-VI) learns a common inference function for latent variables.
result A-VI can close the amortization gap in simple hierarchical models.
Inference models are a key component in scaling variational inference to deep latent variable models, most notably as encoder networks in variational auto-encoders (VAEs). By replacing conventional optimization-based inference with a learned model, inference is amortized over data examples and therefore more computatio…
This paper reviews recent advancements in amortized Variational Inference.
problem Scalability and efficiency issues in traditional Variational Inference.
method Systematic review of various Variational Inference techniques, focusing on amortized approaches.
result Amortized Variational Inference improves scalability and efficiency for generative modeling tasks.
Improves point-cloud reconstruction by optimizing projections with self-attention.
problem Inefficient and non-metric projection methods for sliced Wasserstein distances.
method Proposes distributional sliced Wasserstein distance with self-attention for permutation-invariant and metric optimization.
result Self-attention amortized distributional projection optimization achieves better performance in point-cloud reconstruction.
ASPIRE improves amortized posterior inference for Bayesian inverse problems.
problem Bayesian inverse problems are computationally challenging due to uncertainty quantification.
method Iterative refinement of amortized posteriors using physics-based and summary statistics.
result ASPIRE achieves better posterior approximations with minimal extra computations.
Neural processes approximate Gaussian process inference, revealing three key costs.
problem Approximating Gaussian process inference with neural processes.
method Bounding KL divergence into three components: label contamination, information bottleneck, and amortization error.
result Characterization of three costs of amortizing Gaussian process inference with neural processes.
Transformer-based method improves causal discovery from observational data.
problem Causal discovery from observational data requires explicit assumptions.
method CSIvA transformer architecture trained on synthetic data.
result Transformer-based methods adhere to identifiability theory.
Hybrid Amortized Inference improves PPG model interpretability.
problem Tension between PPG biomarker accuracy and clinical interpretability.
method Introduces PPGen for biophysical PPG signal-physiological parameter relation, and HAI for fast, robust estimation.
result Hybrid Amortized Inference accurately infers physiological parameters from PPG signals.
UDA improves ABI robustness but fails under certain prior misspecifications.
problem Robustness of ABI in noisy real-world data.
method Systematic evaluation of UDA across various misspecification scenarios.
result UDA aligns summary spaces but can fail under prior misspecifications.
New method improves image compression using bits-back coding.
problem Lossy image compression with deep latent variable models.
method Iterative inference, stochastic annealing, bits-back coding.
result New state-of-the-art performance on lossy image compression.
DisCoPyro combines category theory with machine learning for program learning.
problem Applying category theory to machine learning tasks.
method Introducing DisCoPyro, a framework combining categorical structures with amortized variational inference.
result DisCoPyro can be applied in program learning for variational autoencoders and potentially contributes to AGI.
The study compares Bayesian and frequentist approaches in deep learning.
problem Comparing Bayesian and frequentist inference in deep learning.
method Conducts a comparative analysis of point and posterior estimators across various settings.
result Amortized point estimators generally outperform posterior inference, though posterior inference remains competitive in some low-dimensional problems.
A new EM-based algorithm improves deep generative model training.
problem Training deep generative models with maximum likelihood is challenging.
method The paper proposes reweighted expectation maximization (REM), a new algorithm that directly maximizes the log marginal likelihood of the data.
result REM learns better generative models than the IWAE, leading to significantly better performance in density estimation benchmarks.
AMCI improves Monte Carlo integration by amortizing over both datasets and target functions.
problem Inefficiency in approximating expectations for known target functions using current approaches.
method Introduces AMCI, a method for amortizing Monte Carlo integration directly, producing three distinct amortized proposals.
result AMCI can theoretically produce arbitrarily small errors for any integrable target function using only a single sample from each proposal at runtime.
New option type preserves fungibility by amortizing payments over time.
problem Traditional installment options destroy fungibility and lapse when payments stop.
method Introduces amortizing perpetual options (AmPOs) with an implicit payment scheme.
result Valuation of AmPOs reduces to vanilla perpetual American options.
A new method optimizes projection directions for sliced Wasserstein distances.
problem Finding informative projecting directions for sliced Wasserstein distances is computationally expensive.
method Amortized projection optimization to predict directions efficiently.
result Proposed amortized models improve generative modeling performance.
Adaptive workflow combines fast amortized inference with MCMC for many datasets.
problem Trade-off between computational speed and sampling accuracy in Bayesian inference.
method Adaptive workflow integrating amortized inference and MCMC with principled diagnostics.
result Efficiency gains with high posterior quality on tens of thousands of datasets.
The variational autoencoder (VAE) is a popular model for density estimation and representation learning. Canonically, the variational principle suggests to prefer an expressive inference model so that the variational approximation is accurate. However, it is often overlooked that an overly-expressive inference model ca…
A new method improves actor-critic RL by integrating HMC, enhancing policy distribution and exploration.
problem Actor-critic RL yields suboptimal policies due to amortization gap and insufficient exploration.
method Integrating Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) into the actor-critic RL framework.
result Improves policy distribution and exploration, leading to better policy estimates and higher returns.
This paper examines how neural architectures support amortized Bayesian inference and its performance under varying conditions.
problem Understanding and evaluating amortized inference under signal-to-noise variation and distribution shift.
method Statistical analysis of neural architectures including feedforward networks, Deep Sets, and Transformers.
result Neural architectures support amortized Bayesian inference, offering controlled generalization error and robustness under varying conditions.
JANA trains networks to approximate Bayesian models efficiently.
problem Intractable likelihood functions and posterior densities in Bayesian models.
method End-to-end training of three networks: summary, posterior, and likelihood networks.
result JANA provides accurate amortized marginal likelihood and posterior predictive estimation.
Improved diffusion sampling for inverse problems with faster and more robust inference.
problem High computational cost and lack of robustness in diffusion posterior sampling.
method Amortized variational inference with explicit likelihood guidance.
result Improved trade-off between inference speed and robustness to unseen degradations.
Proposes ACP for efficient inference in noisy-or models.
problem Efficient inference in noisy-or models.
method Hybrid approach combining classical and modern variational inference.
result ACP outperforms or matches other approaches in noisy-or models.
Efficiently predicts optimal transport plans using sliced potentials.
problem Predicting optimal transport plans across multiple measure pairs efficiently.
method Regression-based and objective-based amortization strategies using sliced optimal transport potentials.
result Efficient and accurate prediction of optimal transport plans for various tasks.
BayesFlow trains neural networks for fast Bayesian inference.
problem Fast Bayesian inference for complex models.
method Amortized neural networks for intractable posterior distributions.
result Fast inference through pre-trained neural networks.
Simformer uses transformer models to perform flexible Bayesian inference.
problem Current simulation-based inference methods are inflexible and require fixed priors.
method Trains a probabilistic diffusion model with transformer architectures.
result Outperforms state-of-the-art methods on various benchmarks.
Adversarial robustness of amortized Bayesian inference is studied, showing it can be improved.
problem Adversarial robustness of amortized Bayesian inference.
method Simulation-based estimation, regularization scheme based on Fisher information.
result Adversarial robustness can be improved with a regularization scheme.
New method reduces infinite variance in probabilistic programs with rejection sampling.
problem Infinite variance in naive importance sampling for programs with rejection sampling.
method Developed a new amortized importance sampling estimator with finite variance proof.
result Empirically demonstrated efficiency and correctness compared to existing alternatives.
AQL uses amortized inference to handle high-dimensional action spaces in Q-learning.
problem Difficulty in maximizing over large action spaces in Q-learning.
method Replace expensive maximization over all actions with a maximization over a small subset sampled from a learned proposal distribution.
result AQL outperforms existing methods on continuous control tasks with up to 21 dimensional actions.
The paper tackles efficient computation of optimal transport by approximating conjugates with amortized optimization.
problem Efficient computation of convex conjugates in optimal transport is challenging and limits the quality of transport maps.
method The approach combines amortized approximations of conjugates with a fine-tuning solver to improve transport map quality.
result The method significantly improves the quality of transport maps for the Wasserstein-2 benchmark and models many 2D couplings and flows.
Self-consistency improves the accuracy of model comparison methods.
problem Improving the accuracy of model comparison methods when simulation models are misspecified.
method Supplement traditional simulation-based training with a self-consistency loss on unlabeled real data.
result Self-consistency training improves model comparison accuracy, especially in open-world scenarios.
Improved community detection in graphs with probabilistic models.
problem Lack of probabilistic formulation and fixed number of communities in GNN-based methods.
method Combines GNNs with amortized clustering for variable numbers of clusters.
result Improved performance on synthetic and real datasets compared to previous methods.
Proposes an amortized variational framework for Deep Q Networks.
problem Efficient exploration in deep reinforcement learning.
method Amortized variational inference for action value function approximation.
result Significantly less learning parameters and better performance.
This paper compares amortized methods for Bayesian posterior estimation.
problem Bayesian inference difficulties with iterative routines.
method Amortized in-context Bayesian posterior estimation using transformers and normalizing flows.
result Reverse KL estimator superior for predictive problems.
Amortized VI for DGPs learns efficient inference.
problem Expressive limitations in GP approximations.
method Amortized variational inference for DGPs.
result Improved expressive prior and posterior for DGPs.
In this paper, we introduce a new form of amortized variational inference by using the forward KL divergence in a joint-contrastive variational loss. The resulting forward amortized variational inference is a likelihood-free method as its gradient can be sampled without bias and without requiring any evaluation of eith…
New method learns causal models from data efficiently.
problem Learning Structural Causal Models from data is challenging.
method Amortized inference via Conditional Fixed-Point Iterations with transformer embeddings.
result Single model predicts causal mechanisms conditioned on data and graph.
A new recursive mixture estimation algorithm improves VAE inference efficiency and accuracy.
problem Inaccurate posterior approximation in traditional VAEs.
method Recursive mixture estimation algorithm using functional gradient approach for iterative component selection.
result Significantly higher test data likelihood compared to state-of-the-art methods on benchmark datasets.
DAD learns to design experiments quickly, outperforming traditional methods.
problem Real-time decision-making in sequential Bayesian experimental design.
method Amortized design network trained with contrastive information bounds.
result DAD outperforms alternative strategies on various problems.
This paper tackles sampling issues in latent space EBMs by introducing diffusion-based amortization.
problem Degenerate MCMC sampling quality hinders latent space EBM learning and generation quality.
method Introduces diffusion-based amortization for long-run MCMC sampling.
result The learned amortization of MCMC is a valid long-run MCMC sampler.
LazyDINO efficiently solves high-dimensional Bayesian inverse problems with fast and scalable solutions.
problem High-dimensional nonlinear Bayesian inverse problems with expensive parameter-to-observable maps.
method LazyDINO combines derivative-informed neural surrogates and lazy map variational inference for efficient posterior approximation.
result Significant cost reduction in amortized Bayesian inversion, achieving one to two orders of magnitude improvement.
SurvivalPFN simplifies survival analysis through amortized Bayesian inference.
problem Selecting appropriate survival analysis methods requires expertise and can be time-consuming.
method SurvivalPFN uses a prior-data fitted network for in-context Bayesian inference.
result SurvivalPFN achieves strong predictive performance across diverse datasets.
A new framework designs experiments for better decision-making.
problem Suboptimal experimental designs for downstream decision-making.
method Amortized decision-aware Bayesian Experimental Design (BED) with Transformer Neural Decision Process (TNDP).
result TNDP effectively designs experiments and facilitates accurate decision-making.
Probabilistic programming languages (PPLs) are a powerful modeling tool, able to represent any computable probability distribution. Unfortunately, probabilistic program inference is often intractable, and existing PPLs mostly rely on expensive, approximate sampling-based methods. To alleviate this problem, one could tr…
SAVE combines Q-learning and MCTS with amortized value estimates for improved performance.
problem Combining model-free Q-learning and model-based MCTS for efficient learning and planning.
method SAVE uses a learned prior to guide MCTS, which estimates improved state-action values. These estimates are used to update the prior, creating a cooperative relationship between learning and search.
result SAVE achieves higher rewards with fewer training steps and strong performance with small search budgets.
New method uses neural networks to efficiently approximate Bayesian inference for complex models.
problem Efficiently approximating Bayesian inference for complex models with varying temperatures.
method Fully amortized neural posterior estimator trained on a single forward pass.
result Achieves competitive posterior approximations across various temperatures and benchmarks.