Amortized variational inference (AVI) replaces instance-specific local inference with a global inference network. While AVI has enabled efficient training of deep generative models such as variational autoencoders (VAE), recent empirical work suggests that inference networks can produce suboptimal variational parameter…
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48 results for “Generalized Variational Inference”
Variational inference is a scalable technique for approximate Bayesian inference. Deriving variational inference algorithms requires tedious model-specific calculations; this makes it difficult to automate. We propose an automatic variational inference algorithm, automatic differentiation variational inference (ADVI). …
Improved state estimation in nonlinear models using amortized backward variational inference.
problem State estimation in general state-space models.
method Amortized backward variational inference with neural network parameters.
result Linear growth of variational approximation error in number of observations.
Variational inference is an umbrella term for algorithms which cast Bayesian inference as optimization. Classically, variational inference uses the Kullback-Leibler divergence to define the optimization. Though this divergence has been widely used, the resultant posterior approximation can suffer from undesirable stati…
SoftCVI uses contrastive estimation to infer complex posteriors.
problem Estimating complex posteriors in Bayesian inference.
method Contrastive variational inference with self-generated soft labels.
result SoftCVI outperforms other variational approaches in stability and coverage.
Recent efforts on combining deep models with probabilistic graphical models are promising in providing flexible models that are also easy to interpret. We propose a variational message-passing algorithm for variational inference in such models. We make three contributions. First, we propose structured inference network…
Paper introduces f-divergence variational inference for broader application.
problem Variational inference limited to specific divergences.
method Generalizes variational inference to all f-divergences using f-divergence minimization.
result Unified framework for variational inference with arbitrary f-divergences.
The recognition network in deep latent variable models such as variational autoencoders (VAEs) relies on amortized inference for efficient posterior approximation that can scale up to large datasets. However, this technique has also been demonstrated to select suboptimal variational parameters, often resulting in consi…
Variational inference improves training of generative flow networks.
problem Training generative flow networks efficiently and accurately.
method Define variational objectives in terms of KL divergences and optimize convex combinations.
result Variational inference methods can reduce the variance of gradients in training generative flow networks.
AutoBayes simplifies variational inference by composing models and optimizing them.
problem Generalized variational inference complexities and optimization challenges.
method Compositional framework exploiting chain rules for automatic differentiation.
result Optimized models and parameterized statistical games can be locally optimized.
This paper shows equivalence between SVGD and BBVI using kernel gradient flows.
problem Bayesian inference methods and their equivalence.
method Formalizes equivalence between SVGD and BBVI using kernel gradient flows.
result BBVI corresponds precisely to SVGD when using the neural tangent kernel.
Derives a new variational approach to information bottleneck.
problem Information theoretic inference and predictive modeling.
method Variational lower bound of predictive information bottleneck.
result Generalizes modern inference procedures and suggests new ones.
New framework for variational coresets simplifies Bayesian inference for complex models.
problem Efficient Bayesian inference for complex models like neural networks.
method Black-box variational inference for coresets that handle intractable posterior distributions.
result Principled application of variational coresets to Bayesian neural networks.
We introduce the thermodynamic variational objective (TVO) for learning in both continuous and discrete deep generative models. The TVO arises from a key connection between variational inference and thermodynamic integration that results in a tighter lower bound to the log marginal likelihood than the standard variatio…
Variational inference is a powerful tool for approximate inference, and it has been recently applied for representation learning with deep generative models. We develop the variational Gaussian process (VGP), a Bayesian nonparametric variational family, which adapts its shape to match complex posterior distributions. T…
Copula variational inferencestat.ML
We develop a general variational inference method that preserves dependency among the latent variables. Our method uses copulas to augment the families of distributions used in mean-field and structured approximations. Copulas model the dependency that is not captured by the original variational distribution, and thus …
Adaptive variational Bayes framework improves inference adaptively.
problem Lack of general and computationally tractable variational Bayes method for adaptive inference.
method Proposes a novel adaptive variational Bayes framework combining variational posteriors over individual models.
result Adaptive variational Bayes achieves optimal contraction rates adaptively under general conditions.
Stochastic variational inference for collapsed models has recently been successfully applied to large scale topic modelling. In this paper, we propose a stochastic collapsed variational inference algorithm in the sequential data setting. Our algorithm is applicable to both finite hidden Markov models and hierarchical D…
We introduce the variational filtering EM algorithm, a simple, general-purpose method for performing variational inference in dynamical latent variable models using information from only past and present variables, i.e. filtering. The algorithm is derived from the variational objective in the filtering setting and cons…
Inspired by the seminal work on Stein Variational Inference and Stein Variational Policy Gradient, we derived a method to generate samples from the posterior variational parameter distribution by \textit{explicitly} minimizing the KL divergence to match the target distribution in an amortize fashion. Consequently, we a…
Generalized Variational Inference in Function Spaces: Gaussian Measures meet Bayesian Deep Learningstat.ML
GWI combines deep neural networks with Gaussian processes for better predictive performance and uncertainty quantification.
problem Combining deep learning with Gaussian process uncertainty quantification.
method Gaussian Wasserstein inference (GWI) using Wasserstein distance between Gaussian measures.
result GWI achieves state-of-the-art performance on benchmark datasets.
MPM-ParVI uses particle sampling for variational inference.
problem Variational inference for complex probabilistic models.
method Material Point Method (MPM) for particle-based simulation.
result Deterministic sampling and inference for intractable densities.
Recent advances in neural variational inference have spawned a renaissance in deep latent variable models. In this paper we introduce a generic variational inference framework for generative and conditional models of text. While traditional variational methods derive an analytic approximation for the intractable distri…
Variational inference transforms posterior inference into parametric optimization thereby enabling the use of latent variable models where otherwise impractical. However, variational inference can be finicky when different variational parameters control variables that are strongly correlated under the model. Traditiona…
Self-reflective VAE improves inference and generative modeling without complex components.
problem Limitations of typical VAEs in inference and generative modeling.
method Introduces self-reflective inference, a new hierarchical structure that matches variational posterior to exact posterior.
result Self-reflective inference achieves state-of-the-art performance on binarized MNIST without autoregressive layers.
Amortized inference allows latent-variable models trained via variational learning to scale to large datasets. The quality of approximate inference is determined by two factors: a) the capacity of the variational distribution to match the true posterior and b) the ability of the recognition network to produce good vari…
We present a general method for deriving collapsed variational inference algo- rithms for probabilistic models in the conjugate exponential family. Our method unifies many existing approaches to collapsed variational inference. Our collapsed variational inference leads to a new lower bound on the marginal likelihood. W…
New framework improves counterfactual predictions using causal inference.
problem Challenges in predicting counterfactual outcomes with limited covariates and high-dimensional outcomes.
method Variational Bayesian causal inference framework for counterfactual generative modeling.
result Framework encourages disentangled exogenous noise and correct identification of causal effects.
Develops a new framework for analyzing MFVI algorithms.
problem Analyzes mean field variational inference (MFVI) formulations.
method Inspired by variational Bayesian formulations, represents MFVI problem in three ways: gradient flow, Fokker-Planck-like equations, and diffusion process.
result Establishes rigorous guarantees for convergence of time-discretized coordinate ascent variational inference algorithms.
Many modern unsupervised or semi-supervised machine learning algorithms rely on Bayesian probabilistic models. These models are usually intractable and thus require approximate inference. Variational inference (VI) lets us approximate a high-dimensional Bayesian posterior with a simpler variational distribution by solv…
Algorithm improves variational inference in Wasserstein distance.
problem Improving variational inference methods for complex models.
method Wasserstein contraction analysis of coordinate ascent.
result General and sharp convergence guarantees for various models.
New comparison shows differences in how value is incorporated in AIF and CAI.
problem Clarifying the relationship between Active Inference and Control-as-Inference.
method Formal comparison of AIF and CAI frameworks.
result Primary difference is how value is incorporated into generative models.
PVI seeks a posterior that makes predictions closer to true data, not approximating the Bayesian posterior.
problem Finding meaningful posterior distributions under model misspecification.
method Predictive variational inference (PVI) seeks an optimal posterior density for close predictive matching to true data.
result PVI learns a posterior that is not the same as the Bayesian posterior, but is closer to the true data generating process.
New method models longitudinal data using variational inference and normalizing flows.
problem Handling high-dimensional longitudinal data with time dependency.
method Variational inference with normalizing flows for latent variables.
result The method achieves better likelihood estimates and more reliable missing data imputation.
Survey of factor analysis, PCA, variational inference, and VAE.
problem Dimensionality reduction and generative modeling of data.
method Variational inference, factor analysis, probabilistic PCA, and VAE.
result Derivation and explanation of ELBO, EM, and closed-form solutions.
Develops methods for structured variational inference with star-structured models.
problem Inference in models with interdependent variables.
method Star-structured variational inference, existence, uniqueness, self-consistency proofs, approximation error bounds, gradient-based algorithm.
result First results for existence, uniqueness, and self-consistency of variational approximations in star-structured models.
Improved Bayesian inference via variational approximations of generalized rho-posteriors.
problem Robust Bayesian inference under model misspecification and data contamination.
method Introducing a modified -posterior and using PAC-Bayesian analysis with variational approximations.
result Theoretical guarantees for tractable inference with competitive robustness and computational efficiency.
PE-SVI reduces SVI inference complexity by finding a suitable start point.
problem Complex posterior inference in graphical models leads to suboptimal learning.
method PE-SVI uses a pseudo-encoded start point to reduce gradient steps and step sizes.
result PE-SVI achieves the same ELBo objective as SVI with less than 1% of the required steps.
FlowVAT improves variational inference for multi-modal distributions.
problem Mode-seeking behavior and collapse in variational inference for complex posteriors.
method Conditional tempering approach for normalizing flow variational inference.
result FlowVAT outperforms traditional and adaptive annealing methods in multi-modal distributions, finding more modes and achieving better ELBO values.
We introduce overdispersed black-box variational inference, a method to reduce the variance of the Monte Carlo estimator of the gradient in black-box variational inference. Instead of taking samples from the variational distribution, we use importance sampling to take samples from an overdispersed distribution in the s…
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…
Semi-implicit variational inference (SIVI) is introduced to expand the commonly used analytic variational distribution family, by mixing the variational parameter with a flexible distribution. This mixing distribution can assume any density function, explicit or not, as long as independent random samples can be generat…
PAVI speeds up Bayesian inference for large datasets.
problem Challenges in Bayesian inference for large population studies.
method Plate-amortized Variational Inference (PAVI) that shares parameterization across i.i.d. variables.
result Significant speedup in training variational distributions, orders of magnitude faster.
Paper proposes Walsh-Hadamard Variational Inference for efficient approximate inference in large models.
problem Over-regularization in variational inference for large models.
method Walsh-Hadamard factorization strategies to reduce parameterization, accelerate computations, and increase posterior expressiveness.
result Efficient approximate inference achieved in over-parameterized models.
This work uses variational inference to estimate parameters of opinion dynamics models.
problem Challenges in parameter estimation for ABMs of social phenomena.
method Transformed ABM parameter estimation into an optimization problem using variational inference.
result Estimates parameters more accurately than simulation-based and MCMC methods.
A new ParVI framework improves particle-based variational inference methods.
problem Non-trivial kernel design in particle-based variational inference methods.
method Proposes a generalized Wasserstein gradient descent (GWG) framework with broader regularizers.
result Demonstrates strong convergence guarantees and effectiveness on simulated and real data.
Generative adversarial networks (GANs) have given us a great tool to fit implicit generative models to data. Implicit distributions are ones we can sample from easily, and take derivatives of samples with respect to model parameters. These models are highly expressive and we argue they can prove just as useful for vari…
A new method for privacy-preserving Bayesian learning in federated learning.
problem Privacy-preserving learning of models from distributed sensitive data.
method Differentially private partitioned variational inference (DPVI) for federated learning.
result First general framework for federated Bayesian learning with differential privacy.