New framework explains how larger pre-trained models reduce downstream learning sample complexity.
problem Understanding why larger pre-trained models reduce sample complexity in downstream tasks.
method Introducing a novel framework called Caulking inspired by PEFT methods.
result Improved pre-trained models provably decrease downstream task sample complexity.
New framework minimizes model complexity for improved few-shot learning.
problem Empirical benefits of pre-training scale with data size but lack theoretical explanation.
method Complexity Minimization framework for meta-representation learning.
result Theoretical analysis shows error rate improves with more meta-training data.
New algorithm REFUEL shows multitask representation learning is more sample-efficient in RL.
problem Understanding the benefit of representation learning in reinforcement learning.
method Developed REFUEL algorithm for multitask low-rank RL, analyzing both upstream and downstream tasks.
result Multitask representation learning is provably more sample-efficient than individual task learning.
New method optimizes experimental design for specific applications.
problem Inability to adapt causal inference methods to specific downstream applications.
method Task-specific experimental design and sampling strategies.
result Significantly reduces data requirements for achieving RCT performance.
FWC creates fair synthetic samples for machine learning tasks.
problem Addressing biases in machine learning models for fair decision-making.
method FWC uses an efficient majority minimization algorithm to minimize Wasserstein distance while enforcing demographic parity.
result FWC achieves a competitive fairness-utility tradeoff and reduces biases in predictions from large language models.
Develops a method to ensure accuracy of few-shot transfer learning models.
problem Lack of generalization guarantees for low-data transfer learning.
method Trains a distribution over PEFT parameters using upstream tasks and samples plausible PEFTs for downstream tasks.
result Demonstrates non-vacuous generalization guarantees compared to existing methods in the low-shot regime.
Theoretical analysis shows pretext-based self-supervised learning can be boosted by downstream data under certain conditions.
problem Theoretical analysis of pretext-based self-supervised learning and downstream data refinement.
method Theoretical analysis and experiments on synthetic and real-world datasets.
result Theoretical lower bounds and experiments show that downstream data refinement can boost or hurt performance depending on conditions.
New analysis shows diverse classes in pre-training boost NLP performance.
problem Improving sample efficiency in downstream NLP tasks.
method Proved that diverse classes in pre-training lead to better performance, using a large last linear layer singular value.
result Transfer learning excess risk improves with large ildeν and $O\left(\frac{1}{ ildeν \sqrt{n}}
ight)$ rate. Self-supervised metric learning boosts downstream tasks in multi-view data.
problem Improving distance-based downstream tasks without labeled data.
method Developed a statistical framework to study self-supervised metric learning in multi-view data.
result Self-supervised metric learning improves target distances for various downstream tasks.
New framework analyzes why more negative samples improve self-supervised learning performance.
problem Inconsistency between theoretical degradation and empirical improvement of downstream supervised tasks with more negative samples.
method Coupon collector's problem framework to analyze self-supervised representation learning with more negative samples.
result Bound can implicitly incorporate supervised loss in self-supervised loss by increasing negative samples.
CARV reduces compute cost for downstream pipelines using diffusion models.
problem High variance in Monte Carlo estimators from diffusion models limits compute efficiency.
method CARV uses hierarchical MC estimation with amortized upstream computation and stratified-inverse-CDF.
result CARV delivers 2-3x effective compute multipliers without changing the objective.
PCA-Guided Quantile Sampling preserves data structure in large datasets.
problem Preserving data structure in large-scale subsampling.
method PCA QS uses leading principal components to guide stratified sampling.
result PCA QS maintains statistical and geometric structure without distorting semantics.
Contrastive learning performance doesn't degrade with more negative samples.
problem Theoretical and empirical evidence of negative samples hurting performance in contrastive learning.
method Simple theoretical setting and empirical support on CIFAR-10 and CIFAR-100 datasets.
result Contrastive learning performance does not degrade with the number of negative samples.
Robust reinforcement learning agents generalize well to out-of-distribution settings using pretrained representations.
problem Achieving sample-efficient reinforcement learning agents that generalize to real-world settings.
method Trained 240 representations and 10,000 RL policies on a simulated robotic setup, evaluating different pretrained VAE-based representations' effects on OOD generalization.
result Many reinforcement learning agents are surprisingly robust to realistic distribution shifts, including sim-to-real cases.
Action-BED: Task-Driven Bayesian Experimental Design
problem Bayesian experimental design with doubly intractable objectives
method Formulating BED in terms of expected future loss (EFL) and optimising it with stochastic gradients
result Simplified and task-driven framework for BED
Bayesian neural networks (BNNs) allow us to reason about uncertainty in a principled way. Stochastic Gradient Langevin Dynamics (SGLD) enables efficient BNN learning by drawing samples from the BNN posterior using mini-batches. However, SGLD and its extensions require storage of many copies of the model parameters, a p…
This work studies the impact of intra-/inter-class diversity on pre-training datasets and finds a balance for optimal performance.
problem The impact of intra-/inter-class diversity on supervised pre-training datasets and their effect on downstream tasks.
method Empirical study and theoretical analysis of the relationship between diversity types and downstream performance.
result The optimal class-to-sample ratio is invariant to the size of the pre-training dataset and can be predicted.
Paper develops a theory explaining contrastive pre-training for multimodal AI.
problem Limited theoretical understanding of contrastive pre-training for multi-modal AI.
method Introduces approximate sufficient statistics and Joint Generative Hierarchical Model.
result Near-minimizers of contrastive loss are approximately sufficient, enabling diverse downstream tasks.
Score function estimators improve k-subset sampling efficiency.
problem Efficiently sampling k-subsets in machine learning tasks. method Revisit score function estimators, using discrete Fourier transform and control variates.
result Efficient and unbiased gradient estimates for k-subset sampling. UBM transfers bias mitigation from upstream to downstream tasks efficiently.
problem Bias in fine-tuned language models across various tasks.
method Apply bias mitigation to an upstream model, then fine-tune a downstream model on this mitigated model.
result UBM effects transfer to new downstream tasks, creating less biased models.
Enhances performance on downstream tasks using multi-domain data.
problem Improving performance on tasks with limited downstream data.
method Deep transfer learning framework leveraging shared and domain-specific features.
result Significantly improves convergence rate for learning Lipschitz functions.
New theory explains contrastive learning via overlapping augmented views.
problem Lack of theoretical understanding of contrastive learning.
method Augmentation overlap perspective to improve downstream performance.
result Asymptotically closed bounds for downstream performance under weaker assumptions.
ReTabSyn synthesizes realistic tabular data efficiently by focusing on conditional distribution.
problem Synthesizing realistic tabular data in low-data, imbalanced settings.
method ReTabSyn uses reinforcement learning to prioritize feature correlation preservation during training.
result ReTabSyn consistently outperforms state-of-the-art baselines across various benchmarks.
Reinforcement learning algorithms are known to be sample inefficient, and often performance on one task can be substantially improved by leveraging information (e.g., via pre-training) on other related tasks. In this work, we propose a technique to achieve such knowledge transfer in cases where agent trajectories conta…
Efficiently samples conformal boundaries in high dimensions using flows.
problem Difficulty in interpreting and using prediction sets in high-dimensional or structured output spaces.
method Flow-based approach using differentiable nonconformity scores to induce deterministic flows on the output space.
result Sampling conformal boundaries in arbitrary dimensions becomes computationally efficient and training-free.
This paper explains how overparameterization aids in meta-learning with few samples.
problem Building a generalizable model with few samples in meta-learning.
method Analyzes the optimal linear representation and sample complexity for meta-learning tasks.
result Overparameterization naturally answers fundamental meta-learning questions, reducing sample complexity.
Improves generative models by optimizing rewards and sample editing.
problem Efficiently generating high-reward samples with structural constraints.
method Introduces MDM-VGB, a discrete diffusion sampler that augments unmasking generation with reward-guided remasking.
result MDM-VGB achieves quadratic complexity and robustness to noise, outperforming heuristics like best-of-N. MMD-B-Fair learns fair representations by minimizing MMD test power.
problem Learning fair representations of data while preserving target attributes.
method Kernel two-sample testing and block testing schemes.
result Minimizing MMD test power allows hiding sensitive attribute information.
Unified framework for estimating density ratios across multiple distributions.
problem Binary density ratio estimation for multiple distributions.
method Unified framework based on Bregman divergence minimization.
result Generalization of binary DRE methods to multiple distributions.
GP-TS optimizes TLM pre-training hyperparameters efficiently.
problem Resource inefficiency in TLM pre-training.
method Bayesian optimization with Thompson sampling and Gaussian process.
result GP-TS achieves lower MLM loss in fewer epochs.
New method optimizes MRI sampling patterns for faster scans.
problem Accelerate MRI scans without sacrificing image quality.
method Joint learning of adaptive sampling patterns and model-based recovery.
result Improved MR image quality compared to other methods.
Minimal variations guide unsupervised learning for better downstream tasks.
problem Efficiently describing raw data for various future tasks.
method Minimal variations as a guiding principle for unsupervised representation learning.
result Unveiling minimal variations as a principle behind unsupervised learning.
FairWASP optimizes training data to reduce disparities across subgroups.
problem Reducing disparities in model outputs across different subgroups in machine learning.
method A novel pre-processing approach that minimizes Wasserstein distance to the original dataset while satisfying demographic parity.
result Integer weights are optimal, allowing FairWASP to be understood as duplicating or eliminating samples.
Debiased contrastive learning improves representation learning by correcting for same-label sampling.
problem Sampling negative examples from truly different labels improves performance in self-supervised representation learning.
method Developed a debiased contrastive objective that corrects for the sampling of same-label datapoints without true labels.
result The proposed debiased contrastive objective consistently outperforms state-of-the-art methods across vision, language, and reinforcement learning benchmarks.
Paper develops tighter risk certificates for contrastive learning models.
problem Statistical theory for contrastive learning is lacking, especially for practical models like SimCLR.
method Develops non-vacuous PAC-Bayesian risk certificates considering practical SimCLR factors.
result Risk certificates for contrastive loss and downstream prediction are much tighter than previous results.
Optimal Transport (OT) naturally arises in many machine learning applications, yet the heavy computational burden limits its wide-spread uses. To address the scalability issue, we propose an implicit generative learning-based framework called SPOT (Scalable Push-forward of Optimal Transport). Specifically, we approxima…
Customer scoring models are the core of scalable direct marketing. Uplift models provide an estimate of the incremental benefit from a treatment that is used for operational decision-making. Training and monitoring of uplift models require experimental data. However, the collection of data under randomized treatment as…
A new metric FRD improves comparing medical images.
problem Comparing medical images for distribution or domain differences.
method Developed a new metric FRD using standardized radiomic features.
result FRD outperforms other metrics in various medical imaging applications.
A new method optimizes diffusion models for fine-tuning tasks efficiently.
problem Optimizing diffusion models for downstream tasks using nested bilevel structures.
method Formalizes the challenge as a generative bilevel optimization problem and introduces a first-order bilevel framework.
result Our method outperforms existing fine-tuning and hyperparameter search baselines.
Paper proposes learnable topological features for efficient phylogenetic inference.
problem Finding appropriate topological structures for phylogenetic inference tasks requires significant design effort and domain expertise.
method Combines raw node features with graph neural networks to automatically adapt to different tasks.
result Demonstrates effectiveness and efficiency on simulated and real data phylogenetic inference tasks.
A new method for decision-focused learning reduces computational cost.
problem Efficiently solving combinatorial problems with uncertain parameters.
method Reframed as cost-sensitive multi-output regression, with novel loss components.
result Comparable downstream task quality with reduced computational cost.
New method samples from LLM posterior for coherent, useful responses.
problem Hallucinations in large language models.
method Posterior sampling for conditional generation, with calibration.
result Achieves statistical guarantees with higher downstream utility.
VT-DIS improves sampling from Boltzmann distributions with minimal overhead.
problem Bias in Monte Carlo estimates from score-based diffusion models.
method Variance-Tuned Diffusion Importance Sampling (VT-DIS) adapts noise covariance to correct bias.
result VT-DIS achieves effective sample sizes of 80%, 35%, and 3.5% on benchmarks, using less computational budget.
AI bias arises from human-defined goals, not algorithmic flaws.
problem AI bias due to human-defined goals in LLMs.
method Purpose-conditioned cognition and revealing downstream use of LLM outputs.
result AI bias can be reduced by purpose-aware prompting but not fully by regularization.
Recent empirical works have successfully used unlabeled data to learn feature representations that are broadly useful in downstream classification tasks. Several of these methods are reminiscent of the well-known word2vec embedding algorithm: leveraging availability of pairs of semantically "similar" data points and "n…
New method predicts wind farm power and wakes using weather patterns.
problem Inefficient and computationally intensive wind energy resource assessment.
method Unsupervised clustering of ERA5 data on wind velocity, WRF simulations at cluster centers, and post-processing.
result Accurate long-term predictions of power and wakes with reduced computational time.
Improved VAE representations lead to better image classification.
problem VAE representations are inferior to non-latent models for image classification.
method Used a decoder that prefers local features, improving global feature capture in latent variables.
result Significant improvement in downstream semantic classification tasks.
Generative models often fail to preserve joint structure despite matching marginals.
problem Generative models fail to capture complex dependencies beyond univariate marginals.
method Introduced D_Sigma(P,Q) = ||Sigma_P - Sigma_Q||_F to measure covariance-level dependence fidelity.
result Covariance-level divergence can lead to structural instability in downstream inference.