A new model for time series using discrete latent states.
problem Efficiently modeling time series data with discrete latent states.
method A Markov chain-based model for training high-dimensional discrete latent data.
result Improved performance on time series datasets.
CADD improves generative quality by augmenting discrete diffusion with continuous latent space.
problem Loss of semantic information between denoising steps in discrete diffusion models.
method Introduces a framework that augments discrete state space with a continuous latent space, allowing for graded, informative masked tokens.
result CADD improves generative quality across text generation, image synthesis, and code modeling.
LADD models improve discrete diffusion for faster language generation.
problem Practical discrete diffusion models ignore cross-token dependencies, degrading performance.
method Introduces a learnable auxiliary latent channel, diffusing over the joint (token, latent) space.
result LADD models yield improvements on unconditional generation metrics.
GLAD improves latent graph generation by quantizing discrete latent space.
problem Latent space graph generative models lack performance and make unnatural assumptions.
method Adapting diffusion bridges to a discrete latent space, avoiding data space decompositions.
result GLAD achieves competitive performance on graph benchmark datasets.
Probabilistic models with discrete latent variables naturally capture datasets composed of discrete classes. However, they are difficult to train efficiently, since backpropagation through discrete variables is generally not possible. We present a novel method to train a class of probabilistic models with discrete late…
A new method reduces variance in training discrete latent variable models.
problem High variance in stochastic gradient estimators for discrete latent variable models.
method Double control variates for score function estimators using Taylor expansions.
result Our method can have lower variance compared to other estimators.
Improved hierarchical discrete VAEs for better stability and performance.
problem Training stable and efficient hierarchical discrete VAEs with numerous latent variables.
method Introducing Relaxed-Responsibility Vector-Quantisation to parameterise discrete latent variables in a hierarchical structure.
result Achieved state-of-the-art bits-per-dim results for various standard datasets.
New method infers hidden states in continuous-time phenomena better than traditional models.
problem Traditional HSMM's are limited to discrete time grids and cannot handle irregularly spaced data.
method Formulated integro-differential forward and backward equations for CTSMC's, introduced scalable Viterbi-type algorithm.
result Efficiently solved equations for posterior marginals and path estimates.
Paper introduces OMD for ordered state transitions in SSMs.
problem Modeling ordered latent states in dynamic systems.
method Ordered Matrix Dirichlet (OMD) prior over ordered stochastic matrices.
result OMD models recover interpretable ordered latent structure without sacrificing predictive performance.
Improved training for VQ-VAE models with robust codebook learning.
problem Challenges in training discrete latent variable models, especially VQ-VAEs.
method Increased learning rate and periodic re-initialization of codebook for robust training.
result More robust training and increased usage of latent codewords, even for large codebooks.
Direct optimization of binary latent VAEs achieves competitive results without sampling.
problem Training VAEs with discrete latent variables using standard methods is challenging.
method Applied evolutionary algorithms to directly optimize discrete latent distributions.
result Direct optimization is efficient and competitive in zero-shot learning.
New JSA autoencoders tackle discrete latent variable models for semi-supervised learning.
problem Handling discrete observations and latent codes in deep generative models.
method Joint-stochastic-approximation (JSA) autoencoders that directly maximize data log-likelihood and minimize KL divergence.
result JSA autoencoders achieve comparable performance to continuous latent space models in semi-supervised tasks.
A new model tackles language generation issues by using discrete variational attention.
problem Information under-representation and posterior collapse in variational autoencoders.
method Proposes a discrete variational attention model with categorical distribution over attention mechanism.
result Enhances latent space for language generation and avoids posterior collapse.
Framework estimates multiple plausible solutions with uncertainty measures.
problem Machine learning models need to propose multiple plausible solutions with meaningful uncertainty.
method Discrete latent variables model one-to-many mappings, allowing effective conditional probability estimation.
result Framework outperforms state-of-the-art in uncertainty estimation and is practical.
New algorithms tackle latent bandit problems with lower regret.
problem Learning optimal actions in a latent state setting.
method General algorithms based on UCBs and Thompson sampling, aware of model uncertainty.
result Our methods have lower regret than classic bandit policies when latent states are fewer than actions.
Optimal control in latent factor models uses Tsallis entropy for exploration.
problem Optimal control in models with latent factors.
method Reward exploration with Tsallis entropy and derive q-Gaussian distribution over states. result Optimal policy derived in a model-agnostic setting.
A new method learns discrete representations for images and videos, improving upon previous models.
problem Learning discrete representations for images and videos to improve performance.
method Depthwise application of Vector Quantized Variational Autoencoders (VQVAE) to feature axis.
result 33% improvement in performance compared to previous discrete models.
Bayesian active learning reduces data needed for latent variable models.
problem Active learning for latent variable models, especially mixtures of linear regressions and HMMs with GLM observations.
method Maximum-mutual-information input selection for discrete latent variable regression models.
result Active learning can achieve large gains for mixtures of linear-Gaussian models and substantially reduces data needed for GLM-HMM.
This paper presents the Poisson-randomized gamma dynamical system (PRGDS), a model for sequentially observed count tensors that encodes a strong inductive bias toward sparsity and burstiness. The PRGDS is based on a new motif in Bayesian latent variable modeling, an alternating chain of discrete Poisson and continuous …
Unified framework for discrete diffusion modeling with flexible noising processes.
problem Efficient modeling of large discrete state spaces with arbitrary corruption dynamics.
method Generalized Discrete Diffusion from Snapshots (GDDS) framework that supports uniformization for fast noising and snapshot-based ELBO for reverse process.
result GDDS outperforms existing discrete diffusion methods in training efficiency and generation quality.
A new method learns latent variable updates directly, not approximating the posterior.
problem Intractable maximum-likelihood learning for complex latent-variable models.
method Amortised learning using wake-sleep Monte-Carlo strategy.
result Demonstrated effectiveness on various complex models.
A new gradient estimator reduces variance near boundaries for binary latent variables.
problem Explosive gradient variance near boundaries in binary latent variable models.
method Introduces a new gradient estimator (bitflip-1) and an aggregated estimator (UGC) that uses either bitflip-1 or DisARM for each coordinate.
result UGC has uniformly lower variance than DisARM and achieves optimal optimization objectives.
In this letter we borrow from the inference techniques developed for unbounded state-cardinality (nonparametric) variants of the HMM and use them to develop a tuning-parameter free, black-box inference procedure for Explicit-state-duration hidden Markov models (EDHMM). EDHMMs are HMMs that have latent states consisting…
Proposes a VAE with a discrete bottleneck for better text generation.
problem VAEs struggle with latent variable auto-regressive decoding in text generation.
method Introduces a discretized bottleneck to enforce latent feature matching in a compact space.
result Demonstrates improved text generation capabilities across various tasks.
Developing a dialogue agent that is capable of making autonomous decisions and communicating by natural language is one of the long-term goals of machine learning research. Traditional approaches either rely on hand-crafting a small state-action set for applying reinforcement learning that is not scalable or constructi…
Each training step for a variational autoencoder (VAE) requires us to sample from the approximate posterior, so we usually choose simple (e.g. factorised) approximate posteriors in which sampling is an efficient computation that fully exploits GPU parallelism. However, such simple approximate posteriors are often insuf…
Generative models learn latent process to match target distributions.
problem Training flow-matching models with auxiliary stochastic dynamics.
method Introduces latent process generator matching, treating generative state as a deterministic image of a Markov process.
result Learn generator of a stochastic process with same marginal distributions.
We present the Infinite Latent Events Model, a nonparametric hierarchical Bayesian distribution over infinite dimensional Dynamic Bayesian Networks with binary state representations and noisy-OR-like transitions. The distribution can be used to learn structure in discrete timeseries data by simultaneously inferring a s…
GFlowNet-EM learns complex latent variable models with discrete structures.
problem Challenges in modeling posteriors over discrete compositional latents with expectation-maximization.
method Uses GFlowNets to learn stochastic policies for sampling from complex posterior distributions.
result GFlowNet-EM enables training expressive LVMs with discrete compositional latents.
New hashing method improves document retrieval precision.
problem Efficiently retrieving similar documents from large text databases.
method Pairwise supervised hashing with Bernoulli VAE and unbiased gradient estimator.
result Superior performance compared to existing methods.
New gradient estimators for discrete variables improve model training.
problem Training models with discrete latent variables is challenging due to high gradient variance.
method Introduced novel gradient estimators based on importance sampling and statistical couplings, extending to categorical variables.
result Proposed gradient estimators outperform previous methods in systematic experiments.
It is challenging to develop stochastic gradient based scalable inference for deep discrete latent variable models (LVMs), due to the difficulties in not only computing the gradients, but also adapting the step sizes to different latent factors and hidden layers. For the Poisson gamma belief network (PGBN), a recently …
A new method for generative modeling of discrete data using geometric latent subspaces.
problem Learning generative models for discrete data with statistical dependencies.
method Geometric latent-subspace framework in exponential parameter space of product manifolds of categorical distributions.
result Low-dimensional latent space encodes statistical dependencies and accurately models high-dimensional discrete data.
Generative models with both discrete and continuous latent variables are highly motivated by the structure of many real-world data sets. They present, however, subtleties in training often manifesting in the discrete latent being under leveraged. In this paper, we show that such models are more amenable to training whe…
A new model trains prior and encoder/decoder networks simultaneously for efficient generation.
problem Complex autoregressive prior in VQ-VAE models leads to slow generation.
method Builds a diffusion bridge between continuous and non-informative prior distributions.
result Model is competitive and efficient in optimization and sampling.
Learning in models with discrete latent variables is challenging due to high variance gradient estimators. Generally, approaches have relied on control variates to reduce the variance of the REINFORCE estimator. Recent work (Jang et al. 2016, Maddison et al. 2016) has taken a different approach, introducing a continuou…
Bayesian network models with latent variables are widely used in statistics and machine learning. In this paper we provide a complete algebraic characterization of Bayesian network models with latent variables when the observed variables are discrete and no assumption is made about the state-space of the latent variabl…
This text explores strategies for learning discrete latent structures in neural networks.
problem Learning discrete latent structures in neural networks is challenging.
method Continuous relaxation, surrogate gradients, and probabilistic estimation.
result Many latent structure learning strategies use the same fundamental building blocks but apply them differently.
NCDSSM models irregularly sampled time series with improved imputation and forecasting.
problem Accurate modeling of irregularly sampled time series with missing observations.
method Neural Continuous-Discrete State Space Model (NCDSSM) with amortized inference for auxiliary variables and flexible dynamic state parameterizations.
result Improved imputation and forecasting performance on multiple benchmark datasets.
New method for efficient Bayesian inference in GPSSMs.
problem Challenges in inference for Gaussian process state-space models.
method Free-form variational inference with stochastic gradient Hamiltonian Monte Carlo.
result Our method learns transition dynamics and latent states more accurately than competing methods.
Deep generative models have been wildly successful at learning coherent latent representations for continuous data such as video and audio. However, generative modeling of discrete data such as arithmetic expressions and molecular structures still poses significant challenges. Crucially, state-of-the-art methods often …
DCRL learns causal relationships from mixed-type discrete data.
problem Challenges in learning causal relationships from discrete, mixed-type data.
method Generative framework modeling directed acyclic graph and sparse bipartite graph, flexible measurement models for different types of data.
result Consistent recovery of latent causal structure from observed data distribution.
Deep Discrete Encoders (DDEs) tackle interpretable generative models for rich data with discrete latent layers.
problem Overparametrized, non-identifiable, and uninterpretable deep generative models in high-stakes applications.
method Directed graphical model with multiple binary latent layers, transparent identifiability conditions, scalable estimation pipeline.
result Transparent identifiability conditions and scalable estimation pipeline for interpretable DDEs.
New method for efficient marginalization of discrete latent variables in neural networks.
problem Computational challenges in training models with discrete latent variables.
method Parameterizing discrete distributions using sparse mappings (sparsemax and structured variants) to reduce support and enable efficient marginalization.
result Achieved good performance in various tasks with efficient and practical training.
This paper reviews deep learning methods for state space models.
problem Analyzing temporal dynamics in dynamical systems.
method Selective review of deep neural network approaches for state space models.
result Unified perspective on discrete and continuous time SSMs.
NES optimizes discrete structured VAEs effectively without gradient propagation.
problem Learning high-dimensional discrete latent spaces in generative models.
method Natural Evolution Strategies (NES) for gradient-free optimization of discrete structures.
result NES effectively optimizes discrete structured VAEs, comparable to gradient-based methods.
Proposes a non-parametric method for deep discrete latent variable models.
problem Learning sparse discrete latent representations in deep models.
method Iterative algorithm with Beta-Bernoulli process prior and local data scaling.
result Improves sparsity and scalability of deep discrete latent variable models.
New estimators reduce variance in training variational autoencoders with discrete latent variables.
problem Training variational autoencoders with discrete latent variables requires efficient gradient estimation.
method Introduce ReinMax-Rao and ReinMax-CV estimators using Rao-Blackwellisation and control variates.
result Demonstrate superior performance on training variational autoencoders with discrete latent spaces.