OCEAN infers online task identities from context variables.
problem Online task inference for compositional tasks with context adaptation.
method Variational inference framework OCEAN models global and local context variables in a joint latent space.
result OCEAN provides more effective task inference with sequential context adaptation.
CRUMB: Efficient Prior Fitted Network Inference via Distributionally Matched Context Batching
problem Inference of tabular foundation models with large training datasets
method CRUMB (Clustered Retrieval Using Minimised-MMD Batching)
result CRUMB outperforms state-of-the-art context selection strategies on the TabArena benchmark
Bayesian framework uses context trees for efficient time series modeling.
problem Building flexible and interpretable mixture models for real-valued time series.
method Hierarchical Bayesian modelling with context trees and autoregressive models.
result The methods outperform state-of-the-art techniques on simulated and real-world experiments.
Attention-only transformers learn from context via two stages of inference.
problem Learning from corrupted token sequences in minimal transformers.
method Two-stage empirical Bayes interpretation: kernel-weighted posterior mean and particle dynamics.
result Effective denoising without explicit noise schedules, showing posterior-mean recovery under asymptotic conditions.
Optimally explores dynamical systems with varying properties using context inference.
problem Learning dynamics models for systems with varying properties.
method Formulates dynamics models as stochastic processes conditioned on a latent context variable inferred from system transitions. Uses probabilistic formulation to compute optimal action sequences for exploration.
result Demonstrates effectiveness of the method on non-linear toy-problems and reinforcement learning environments.
ICEE learns new RL tasks in less time with a Transformer model.
problem Efficient in-context policy learning for reinforcement learning.
method In-context Exploration-Exploitation (ICEE) algorithm that optimizes efficiency without explicit Bayesian inference.
result ICEE solves Bayesian optimization problems as efficiently as Gaussian process biased methods but in significantly less time.
New model uses attention for in-context learning of categorical data.
problem Learning from categorical data in context.
method Attention-based network with self-attention and cross-attention layers, using functional gradient descent.
result Model can perform multi-step inference for categorical observations.
Understanding users' context is essential for successful recommendations, especially for Online-to-Offline (O2O) recommendation, such as Yelp, Groupon, and Koubei. Different from traditional recommendation where individual preference is mostly static, O2O recommendation should be dynamic to capture variation of users' …
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.
New online method for statistical inference with matrix context in decision-making.
problem Statistical inference in decision-making with matrix context.
method Proposes a fully online procedure to conduct statistical inference with adaptive data collection, handling low-rank structure.
result Establishes asymptotic normality of debiased estimators and proves validity of confidence intervals.
Transformer learns to infer partial MDPs for efficient in-context adaptation and exploration.
problem Efficiently adapt and explore in-context without gradient-based updates.
method Uses a transformer to learn inference from training tasks, considering hypothesis space of partial models.
result Adaptation speed and exploration-exploitation balance approach those of an exact posterior sampling oracle.
INFERS PDEs from data samples using learned context.
problem Inferring explicit PDEs from unseen dynamics.
method Contextual Finite Differences (CFD) method integrating PDE form and differential scheme.
result Yields a PDE fitting the data sample for signal prediction and explanation.
Neural attention (NA) has become a key component of sequence-to-sequence models that yield state-of-the-art performance in as hard tasks as abstractive document summarization (ADS) and video captioning (VC). NA mechanisms perform inference of context vectors; these constitute weighted sums of deterministic input sequen…
This work introduces a method to decompose uncertainty in in-context learning for large language models.
problem Understanding the sources of uncertainty in in-context learning for large language models.
method Variational uncertainty decomposition framework without sampling from latent parameter posterior.
result Quantitative and qualitative validation of decomposed epistemic and aleatoric uncertainties.
NOTMAD estimates context-specific Bayesian networks without breaking datasets.
problem Non-convexity of acyclic graphs limits sharing information between context-specific estimators.
method NOTMAD models context-specific Bayesian networks as mixtures of archetypal DAGs, estimating structures and parameters jointly.
result NOTMAD shares information between context-specific acyclic graphs, enabling single-sample resolution.
The performance of machine learning model can be further improved if contextual cues are provided as input along with base features that are directly related to an inference task. In offline learning, one can inspect historical training data to identify contextual clusters either through feature clustering, or hand-cra…
Transformers prefer simpler explanations in hierarchical tasks.
problem Navigating tasks with varying complexity levels.
method Well-controlled testbeds based on Markov chains and linear regression.
result Transformers favor the least complex sufficient explanation when presented with simpler data.
Efficiently combines autoregressive and set-based models for joint distributions.
problem Joint distributions over multiple predictions from set-based models.
method Causal autoregressive buffer that caches context and captures dependencies.
result Up to 20x faster joint sampling and density evaluation, up to 7x lower memory usage.
Sparse attention model reduces long-context inference time with exponential accuracy guarantees.
problem Efficiently processing long-context queries in large language models.
method Formalizes attention as a projection onto key vectors, analyzes entropic relaxation, and introduces Vashista Sparse Attention.
result Sparse attention concentrates on a constant-size active face, leading to exponential decay of inactive tokens' mass and linear scaling of active face error.
Bayesian analysis reveals epistemic uncertainty as a key diagnostic for delayed generalization in in-context learning.
problem Delayed generalization in in-context learning from few examples.
method Bayesian perspective, modular arithmetic tasks, approximate Bayesian techniques, spectral mechanism analysis.
result Epistemic uncertainty collapses sharply when the model groks, indicating a practical diagnostic of generalization.
Generative Adapter adapts LMs with a single forward pass, reducing inference overhead.
problem Efficient adaptation of large language models for new contexts.
method Generative Adapter directly maps new contexts to low-rank LM adapters via self-supervised learning.
result Significant reduction in inference overhead with no need for fine-tuning.
We consider the problem of naming objects in complex, natural scenes containing widely varying object appearance and subtly different names. Informed by cognitive research, we propose an approach based on sharing context based object hypotheses between visual and lexical spaces. To this end, we present the Visual Seman…
We study a formalization of the grammar induction problem that models sentences as being generated by a compound probabilistic context-free grammar. In contrast to traditional formulations which learn a single stochastic grammar, our grammar's rule probabilities are modulated by a per-sentence continuous latent variabl…
A new method uses gene interaction networks to predict gene functions.
problem Predicting gene functions from gene interactions.
method Context graph kernel approach in a machine learning framework.
result The proposed method outperforms linkage-assumption-based methods.
Neural Machine Translation (NMT) generates target words sequentially in the way of predicting the next word conditioned on the context words. At training time, it predicts with the ground truth words as context while at inference it has to generate the entire sequence from scratch. This discrepancy of the fed context l…
New attack reveals memorization patterns in pre-trained LLMs.
problem Determining if a data point was part of a pre-trained LLM's training set.
method Adapts MIA statistical tests to LLM's perplexity dynamics of subsequences.
result Significantly outperforms prior approaches in membership inference attacks.
TabPFN doesn't outperform GLM and XGBoost for motor insurance pricing.
problem Improving insurance pricing models using Tabular Foundation Models (TFMs).
method Pre-training on synthetic datasets and in-context learning for inference.
result TabPFN does not consistently outperform established baselines, has longer inference times, and is sensitive to training set size.
Scales attention for long contexts in LLMs.
problem Development of attention mechanisms for long context inference.
method Scale-invariant total attention and sparsity conditions, with a position-dependent transformation of logits.
result Scale-invariant attention scheme improves validation loss and long-context retrieval.
Transformer learns context and regularization for ICL in inverse problems.
problem Learning context and effective regularization for transformer-based in-context learning (ICL) in inverse problems.
method Introduced a linear transformer to learn inverse mapping from contextual examples to weight vectors, addressing rank-deficient problems.
result Transformer implicitly learns a prior distribution and effective regularization strategy, outperforming traditional methods.
Paper addresses regret minimization and inference in high-dimensional online decision-making.
problem Regret minimization and statistical inference in high-dimensional online decision-making.
method Integrates ε-greedy bandit algorithm with hard thresholding for sparse bandit parameters and debiasing method for inference.
result Achieves either O(T1/2) regret or O(T1/2)-consistent inference, with trade-off between exploration and exploitation. Study quantized models' privacy against membership inference attacks.
problem Privacy risk in quantized machine learning models.
method Proposed a new MIS indicator for post-training quantization procedures, minimizing empirical loss.
result Demonstrated effectiveness of new MIS indicator in assessing and ranking privacy risk.
ICON-OCnet solves optimal execution problems with neural networks and few examples.
problem Optimal order execution in markets with unknown price impact.
method Transformer-based neural network architecture (ICON-OCnet) that learns price impact from few examples and applies it to optimal execution strategies.
result ICON-OCnet accurately infers price impact models and retrieves optimal execution strategies for various propagator kernels.
A framework infers causal direction from symbolic sequences using compression measures.
problem Inferring causal direction from two observed discrete symbolic sequences.
method Lossless compressors for inferring context-free grammars (CFGs) and quantifying compression extent.
result Grammar inferred from one sequence better compresses the other sequence, indicating causal direction.
Clarifies challenges in machine learning uncertainty quantification.
problem Inconsistent terminology and diverse technical requirements for trustworthy uncertainties.
method Examines estimation targets, uncertainty constructs, and problematic mappings.
result Advocates for alignment between intent and implementation in UQ.
We present a probabilistic language model for time-stamped text data which tracks the semantic evolution of individual words over time. The model represents words and contexts by latent trajectories in an embedding space. At each moment in time, the embedding vectors are inferred from a probabilistic version of word2ve…
Contextualized ML learns context-dependent effects using deep learning.
problem Learning heterogeneous and context-dependent effects in data.
method Applying deep learning to the meta-relationship between contextual information and context-specific parametric models.
result Unified framework for cluster analysis and cohort modeling.
New tools connect CP to GF inference for better probabilistic prediction.
problem Lack of versatility in conformal prediction for quantifying evidence.
method Imprecise probability theory and generalized fiducial inference.
result Establishes a formal connection between CP and GF inference.
A new method reduces inference cost for FwFM by allowing it to scale with item fields only.
problem High computational cost in FwFM for large field counts.
method Low-rank diagonal plus symmetric decomposition for field-wise interactions.
result Aggressive rank reduction outperforms pruning in accuracy and speed.
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.
Transformers infer tasks from context via two modes, geometrically shaped task vectors explain their behavior.
problem Understanding how transformers infer tasks from context and the geometric properties of task vectors.
method Synthetic setting to train small transformers, mathematical characterization of task-vector geometry and inference modes.
result Task-vector geometry shapes in-distribution and out-of-distribution behavior of transformers.
Low dimensional representations of words allow accurate NLP models to be trained on limited annotated data. While most representations ignore words' local context, a natural way to induce context-dependent representations is to perform inference in a probabilistic latent-variable sequence model. Given the recent succes…
TL-ANDI distills context from source data to improve transfer learning for TFMs.
problem Limited transfer learning due to context-size constraints and distribution shifts.
method TL-ANDI uses posterior-aware distillation to construct a compact source context and locally distills labels.
result Improves transfer performance by addressing context-size and distribution shifts.
New method for efficient inference over complex parameter spaces.
problem Challenges in Bayesian inference for high-dimensional, intractable likelihoods.
method Arbitrary Marginal Neural Ratio Estimation (AMNRE) for simulation-based inference.
result Efficient inference over arbitrary subsets of parameters without numerical integration.
New analysis shows LLMs don't follow Bayesian inference in ICL.
problem Does in-context learning in LLMs follow Bayesian inference?
method Analyzes ICL through the martingale property, a requirement for Bayesian inference.
result Violations of the martingale property show LLMs don't follow Bayesian inference.
Always-on sensing of mobile device user's contextual information is critical to many intelligent use cases nowadays such as healthcare, drive assistance, voice UI. State-of-the-art approaches for predicting user context have proved the value to leverage multiple sensing modalities for better accuracy. However, those co…
We present a Bayesian nonparametric framework for multilevel clustering which utilizes group-level context information to simultaneously discover low-dimensional structures of the group contents and partitions groups into clusters. Using the Dirichlet process as the building block, our model constructs a product base-m…
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.
Unified theory for causal inference using various methods.
problem Estimating causal effects in ATE estimation.
method Riesz regression, covariate balancing, DRE, TMLE, matching estimator.
result Unified theory integrating multiple methods for ATE estimation.