Goal-directed manipulation of representations is a key element of human flexible behaviour, while consciousness is often related to several aspects of higher-order cognition and human flexibility. Currently these two phenomena are only partially integrated (e.g., see Neurorepresentationalism) and this (a) limits our un…
The paper investigates Goodhart's law and its impact on goal alignment.
problem The adverse effects of optimizing a measure when it diverges from the true goal.
method Formal analysis of Goodhart's law, focusing on the tail distribution of discrepancies.
result Goodhart's law depends on the tail distribution of discrepancies between the true goal and the optimized measure.
The goal of temporal alignment is to establish time correspondence between two sequences, which has many applications in a variety of areas such as speech processing, bioinformatics, computer vision, and computer graphics. In this paper, we propose a novel temporal alignment method called least-squares dynamic time war…
Sparse text alignments learned via optimal transport improve model explainability.
problem Building self-explaining models by selecting relevant text pieces.
method Employing optimal transport to find minimal cost alignments, introducing constrained variants for sparsity.
result Sparse and interpretable alignments achieved, preserving prediction accuracy.
An efficient algorithm for aligning diffusion trees to networks with information asymmetry.
problem Aligning diffusion trees to networks with information asymmetry.
method Tree correlation tests for extracting alignment information.
result Explicit lower bounds on the probability of correct matches for each vertex on the diffusion tree.
Study connects database alignment and planted matching using Gaussian features.
problem Identify matching between correlated user features in anonymized databases.
method Derived results for database alignment and planted matching, showing connections and thresholds.
result Performance thresholds for database alignment converge to planted matching when feature dimensionality is sufficiently high.
Robustly aligns datasets with partial GW distance to handle contamination.
problem Aligning contaminated datasets using Gromov-Wasserstein distances.
method Proposes a partial GW distance estimator to minimize distortion from outliers.
result The partial GW distance estimator is minimax optimal and near-optimal in finite samples.
Paper proposes using LSTM for LSH-based sequence alignment.
problem Sequence alignment using deep learning models.
method Deep bidirectional LSTM for feature learning and LSH-based sequence alignment.
result Higher accuracy achieved with LSTM-based model.
In many machine learning applications, it is necessary to meaningfully aggregate, through alignment, different but related datasets. Optimal transport (OT)-based approaches pose alignment as a divergence minimization problem: the aim is to transform a source dataset to match a target dataset using the Wasserstein dista…
The study investigates kernel-target alignment in tree ensemble kernels.
problem The degree of kernel-target alignment affects the performance of tree ensemble kernels in kernel learning.
method Eigenanalysis of the kernel matrix and sensitivity analysis via landmark learning.
result Good performance of tree ensemble kernels is associated with strong kernel-target alignment.
Bayesian HMM for protein alignment state estimation.
problem Estimating the MAP state sequence for a Bayesian HMM.
method Training data with Dirichlet priors, iterative algorithms for MAP path estimation.
result Bayesian setup outperforms frequentist estimation in protein alignment.
We first introduce a novel profile-based alignment algorithm, the multiple continuous Signal Alignment algorithm with Gaussian Process Regression profiles (SA-GPR). SA-GPR addresses the limitations of currently available signal alignment methods by adopting a hybrid of the particle smoothing and Markov-chain Monte Carl…
New approach improves black-box planning efficiency by discovering focused macros.
problem Difficulty of deterministic planning increases exponentially with depth.
method Discovering macro-actions with focused effects to improve goal-count heuristics.
result Focused macros dramatically improve black-box planning efficiency.
Framework controls uncertainty in LLMs without labels or probabilities.
problem Managing uncertainty in black-box LLMs without token-level probability or true labels.
method Integrates generative models, UCP, and conformal alignment to control uncertainty.
result Achieves close-to-nominal coverage and tighter thresholds than split UCP.
Rewiring GNNs to optimize community and feature alignment improves their performance.
problem Improving GNNs' performance by addressing over-squashing and generalization issues.
method Three rewiring strategies: ComMa, FeaSt, and ComFy, targeting community structure, node labels, and their alignment.
result Rewiring strategies enhance GNNs' performance by optimizing label-community alignment.
This work shows how exploiting gradient alignment can improve distributed and federated learning performance.
problem Misalignment of gradients across clients in distributed and federated learning.
method Utilizing implicit regularization through a novel GradAlign algorithm that induces gradient alignment with large mini-batches.
result Improvements in test accuracies and generalization performance.
GOIMDA selects inputs to maximize expected influence on a goal functional, reducing data acquisition needs.
problem Challenges in active data acquisition for learning and optimization tasks in deep neural networks.
method GOIMDA uses inverse curvature and goal gradient to select inputs maximizing expected influence on a specified goal functional.
result GOIMDA achieves target performance with fewer labeled samples or function evaluations compared to baselines.
Improves text-to-image diffusion models using GFlowNets.
problem Aligning diffusion models with text descriptions.
method Post-training diffusion models with GFlowNets to generate high-reward images.
result Effective alignment of large-scale text-to-image diffusion models with reward information.
ELS framework improves safety alignment by dynamically steering LLMs towards helpful responses.
problem Over-Refusal in Aligned Large Language Models
method Fine-tuning free framework using an Energy-Based Model (EBM) to dynamically steer LLMs during inference.
result Extensive experiments show a significant reduction in false refusals (from 57.3% to 82.6%) while maintaining safety performance.
GoBOED optimizes experiments for specific decision-making objectives, improving downstream outcomes.
problem Reducing parameter uncertainty does not always improve decision-making in critical settings.
method Combines variational posterior surrogate and differentiable convex decision layer for gradient-based design optimization.
result GoBOED identifies designs that better align with specific decision objectives and reveals wider optimal design windows.
We consider unsupervised domain adaptation: given labelled examples from a source domain and unlabelled examples from a related target domain, the goal is to infer the labels of target examples. Under the assumption that features from pre-trained deep neural networks are transferable across related domains, domain adap…
Paper characterizes optimal language model alignment methods.
problem Aligning language models to maximize reward while keeping them close to the original model.
method KL-constrained reinforcement learning and best-of-N methods.
result Optimal KL-constrained RL solution has a large deviation principle rate function.
Graph alignment problem solved with convex relaxations for correlated matrices.
problem Recovering hidden vertex permutations from correlated Gaussian matrices.
method Convex relaxations of the quadratic assignment problem over doubly stochastic matrices.
result The solution of the convex relaxation concentrates around the ground-truth permutation matrix for certain correlation parameters.
This paper tests LLMs in finance to assess ethical behavior.
problem Aligning AI with ethical and legal standards in finance.
method Prompted LLMs to simulate CEO behavior, analyzed with logistic regression.
result Significant heterogeneity in LLMs' unethical behavior propensity.
RLHF performs well despite violating social choice theory axioms.
problem RLHF's empirical success contradicts social choice theory axioms.
method Showed RLHF satisfies pairwise majority and Condorcet consistency under mild assumptions, and introduced new alignment criteria.
result RLHF satisfies pairwise majority and Condorcet consistency under mild assumptions, explaining its practical success.
An important goal of computer vision is to build systems that learn visual representations over time that can be applied to many tasks. In this paper, we investigate a vision-language embedding as a core representation and show that it leads to better cross-task transfer than standard multi-task learning. In particular…
GO-CBED optimizes experiments for specific causal queries, improving efficiency.
problem Efficiently infer causal relationships with limited resources.
method Goal-oriented Bayesian framework that maximizes expected information gain on user-specified causal quantities.
result GO-CBED outperforms existing methods in various causal tasks, especially with limited budgets.
Our goal is to design architectures that retain the groundbreaking performance of CNNs for landmark localization and at the same time are lightweight, compact and suitable for applications with limited computational resources. To this end, we make the following contributions: (a) we are the first to study the effect of…
Recent efforts on training visual navigation agents conditioned on language using deep reinforcement learning have been successful in learning policies for different multimodal tasks, such as semantic goal navigation and embodied question answering. In this paper, we propose a multitask model capable of jointly learnin…
Framework enhances AI explainability by aligning with human cognitive models.
problem Lack of explainability in AI models hinders trust and accountability.
method Integrates explainability techniques with Malle's five category model of behavior explanation.
result Demonstrates practical relevance in credit risk assessment and regulatory analysis.
Modeling the relationship between chemical structure and molecular activity is a key goal in drug development. Many benchmark tasks have been proposed for molecular property prediction, but these tasks are generally aimed at specific, isolated biomedical properties. In this work, we propose a new cross-modal small mole…
This paper addresses unsupervised domain adaptation, the setting where labeled training data is available on a source domain, but the goal is to have good performance on a target domain with only unlabeled data. Like much of previous work, we seek to align the learned representations of the source and target domains wh…
This paper examines how different decoding algorithms for LLMs align with various goals.
problem Consistency of decoding algorithms with different goals in LLMs.
method Analysis of greedy, lookahead, random sampling, and temperature-scaled random sampling algorithms.
result Random sampling is consistent with the true probability distribution, but other goals require optimal algorithms for specific probability distributions.
New method defends deep nets against large perturbations perceptible to humans.
problem Vulnerability of deep nets to adversarial attacks with perceptible but not changing predictions.
method Oracle-Aligned Adversarial Training (OA-AT) to align network predictions with Oracle's.
result Achieves state-of-the-art performance at large perturbation bounds (L-inf of 16/255 on CIFAR-10).
The presence of noise is common in signal processing regardless the signal type. Deep neural networks have shown good performance in noise removal, especially on the image domain. In this work, we consider deep neural networks as a denoising tool where our focus is on one dimensional signals. We introduce an encoder-de…
This paper uses MIO to select features for kernel SVM classification.
problem Feature selection for kernel SVM classification.
method Mixed-integer optimization (MIO) for feature subset selection.
result The MIO approach can often outperform linear-SVM-based methods in prediction performance.
The paper analyzes frameworks for integrating sustainability into investment decisions.
problem Understanding how ESG factors influence investment choices.
method Examined and analyzed various theoretical frameworks including Behavioral Finance, Modern Portfolio, and Risk Management.
result Investors increasingly integrate ESG factors to optimize financial outcomes and societal goals.
Enhanced portfolio optimization for a financial goal with G-Learning and GIRL algorithms.
problem Maximize portfolio value while minimizing periodic contributions by a target date in volatile markets.
method Combines G-Learning and GIRL algorithms for dynamic portfolio optimization.
result Improved Sharpe Ratio from 0.42 to 0.483, demonstrating robust optimization in volatile markets.
New theory validates the use of invariant predictors for OOD generalization.
problem Ensuring predictors generalize well across unseen environments.
method Developed new theoretical conditions and derived an Inter Gradient Alignment algorithm.
result Validated the necessity of invariant predictors for OOD optimality.
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.
Paper tackles distribution matching by partially matching distributions, achieving robust results.
problem Robustly aligning two probability distributions.
method Developed a partial Wasserstein adversarial network (PWAN) to efficiently approximate the partial Wasserstein-1 (PW) discrepancy.
result The PWAN effectively produces highly robust matching results, outperforming state-of-the-art methods.
A new framework for averaging spatio-temporal signals using optimal transport and soft alignments.
problem Averaging complex datasets with time and spatial components.
method Inspired by DTW, OT, and UOT, a new loss function is proposed to address shifts in time, space, and population size.
result The proposed loss function can be used to compute spatio-temporal barycenters efficiently.
The paper addresses the difficulty of decision makers trusting AI-assisted predictions and proposes a method to improve confidence values.
problem Decision makers struggle to trust AI-assisted predictions based on confidence values.
method The paper investigates why decision makers have difficulties and proposes a method to construct more useful confidence values.
result Multicalibration with respect to the decision maker's confidence on her own predictions is a sufficient condition for alignment, leading to better decisions.
PINNs solve differential geometry problems in complex shapes.
problem Solving differential geometry problems in complex shapes.
method Training neural networks with loss functions inspired by differential conditions.
result PINNs are effective for differential geometry problems.
Gradient-free deep learning for large datasets.
problem Training deep neural networks on large-scale datasets is resource-intensive and requires specialized techniques.
method Recursive Local Representation Alignment (RLRA) for gradient-free training.
result RLRA achieves comparable performance to backprop while converging faster and being parallelizable.
MpFL models clients as strategic players to reach equilibrium with less communication.
problem Real-world clients act independently with individual objectives, not aligned with a shared global model.
method MpFL uses game-theoretic modeling and PEARL-SGD algorithm for local updates and communication.
result PEARL-SGD reaches an equilibrium with less communication than non-local updates in stochastic setup.
Unified theory for semiparametric data fusion with individual-level data.
problem Handling data fusion problems, especially in settings with diverse data sources and designs.
method Extending a comprehensive theory to handle conditional and marginal distribution alignments, providing universal results for influence functions and efficient influence functions.
result Paves the way for machine-learning debiased, semiparametric efficient estimation.
The goal of dynamic time warping is to transform or warp time in order to approximately align two signals together. We pose the choice of warping function as an optimization problem with several terms in the objective. The first term measures the misalignment of the time-warped signals. Two additional regularization te…