In this paper, we provide an information-theoretic interpretation of the Vector Quantized-Variational Autoencoder (VQ-VAE). We show that the loss function of the original VQ-VAE can be derived from the variational deterministic information bottleneck (VDIB) principle. On the other hand, the VQ-VAE trained by the Expect…
Paper revisits Deep Variational Information Bottleneck and proposes a new optimization approach.
problem Limitations of Deep Variational Information Bottleneck in optimizing mutual information.
method Proposes a new optimization approach by circumventing the limitation of requiring both Markov chains during optimisation.
result Shows how to optimise a lower bound for mutual information, circumventing the limitation of requiring both Markov chains.
In classic papers, Zellner demonstrated that Bayesian inference could be derived as the solution to an information theoretic functional. Below we derive a generalized form of this functional as a variational lower bound of a predictive information bottleneck objective. This generalized functional encompasses most moder…
The Information bottleneck method is an unsupervised non-parametric data organization technique. Given a joint distribution P(A,B), this method constructs a new variable T that extracts partitions, or clusters, over the values of A that are informative about B. The information bottleneck has already been applied to doc…
Proposes a multi-task learning model using variational information bottleneck.
problem Balancing performance and robustness across different tasks in multi-task learning.
method Variational Information Bottleneck (VIB) architecture for multi-task learning.
result The proposed model achieves competitive prediction accuracy under adversarial attacks.
We present a simple case study, demonstrating that Variational Information Bottleneck (VIB) can improve a network's classification calibration as well as its ability to detect out-of-distribution data. Without explicitly being designed to do so, VIB gives two natural metrics for handling and quantifying uncertainty.
In this paper, we develop an unsupervised generative clustering framework that combines the Variational Information Bottleneck and the Gaussian Mixture Model. Specifically, in our approach, we use the Variational Information Bottleneck method and model the latent space as a mixture of Gaussians. We derive a bound on th…
New Variational InfoMax objective improves neural network performance.
problem Optimizing neural networks using Bayesian Inference and Information Bottleneck.
method Derive Variational InfoMax (VIM) objective that maximizes InfoMax directly.
result VIM improves model performance in accuracy, robustness, and representation quality.
Proposes a new method to selectively access privileged information in reinforcement learning.
problem Selective compression of privileged information in reinforcement learning.
method Formulates a variational bandwidth bottleneck to decide stochastically whether to access privileged information.
result Improves generalization and reduces access to costly information in reinforcement learning experiments.
Proposes a robust VIB approach using soft labels and mutual info estimation.
problem Improving robustness of VIB to adversarial perturbations.
method Refines categorical class information with soft labels from a reference network, relaxes Gaussian posterior assumption.
result Significantly outperforms benchmarked models on MNIST and CIFAR-10.
Interpretable machine learning has gained much attention recently. Briefness and comprehensiveness are necessary in order to provide a large amount of information concisely when explaining a black-box decision system. However, existing interpretable machine learning methods fail to consider briefness and comprehensiven…
In this draft, which reports on work in progress, we 1) adapt the information bottleneck functional by replacing the compression term by class-conditional compression, 2) relax this functional using a variational bound related to class-conditional disentanglement, 3) consider this functional as a training objective for…
Tutorial on information bottleneck problems with connections to coding and learning.
problem Information bottleneck problems and their connections to coding and learning.
method Information theoretic perspective, practical methods, connections to various problems.
result Optimal trade-offs between relevance and complexity in discrete and vector Gaussian frameworks.
In many applications, it is desirable to extract only the relevant aspects of data. A principled way to do this is the information bottleneck (IB) method, where one seeks a code that maximizes information about a 'relevance' variable, Y, while constraining the information encoded about the original data, X. Unfortunate…
VIB balances empirical and Bayesian approaches in predictive models.
problem Balancing empirical and Bayesian methods in predictive models.
method VIB as a compromise between empirical and Bayesian objectives.
result VIB minimizes risks due to finite sampling of targets.
CVIB uses information theory to learn counterfactuals from MNAR data without RCTs.
problem Debiasing learning from missing-not-at-random (MNAR) data in recommendation systems.
method CVIB, a variational information bottleneck, separates task-aware mutual information into factual and counterfactual parts.
result CVIB significantly enhances both shallow and deep models in recommendation systems.
Meta learning with information theory and Gaussian processes.
problem Few-shot learning problems.
method Information bottleneck, mutual information, variational approximations, Gaussian processes.
result Competitive accuracy on few-shot classification problems.
New definition of disentanglement for non-independent factors of variation.
problem Current disentanglement definitions assume independent factors of variation, limiting their applicability.
method Definition based on information theory, related to Information Bottleneck Method, proposed measurement method.
result Proposed method correctly measures disentanglement with non-independent factors of variation.
Information bottleneck (IB) is a technique for extracting information in one random variable X that is relevant for predicting another random variable Y. IB works by encoding X in a compressed "bottleneck" random variable M from which Y can be accurately decoded. However, finding the optimal bottleneck variab…
New objective function improves model robustness.
problem Machine Learning robustness issues.
method Conditional Entropy Bottleneck (CEB) objective function.
result CEB models improve robust generalization.
New IBOs resolve contradictions in mutual information optimization.
problem Contradictions in mutual information optimization between IBP, PIBP, and recent results.
method Formulated and optimized variational bounds on new IBOs.
result New IBOs account for parameter selection in trained models.
Zellner (1988) modeled statistical inference in terms of information processing and postulated the Information Conservation Principle (ICP) between the input and output of the information processing block, showing that this yielded Bayesian inference as the optimum information processing rule. Recently, Alemi (2019) re…
We propose a novel strategy for extracting features in supervised learning that can be used to construct a classifier which is more robust to small perturbations in the input space. Our method builds upon the idea of the information bottleneck by introducing an additional penalty term that encourages the Fisher informa…
This study analyzes VAEs using ID and II, revealing a transition in behaviour and distinct training phases.
problem Understanding the hidden representations and training phases of VAEs.
method Analysis using Intrinsic Dimension (ID) and Information Imbalance (II).
result VAEs exhibit a transition in behaviour and distinct training phases when the bottleneck size exceeds the Intrinsic Dimension of the data.
New method improves deep neural network performance in regression tasks.
problem Improving generalization, robustness, and explainability of deep neural networks in regression.
method Developed a new Information Bottleneck approach using Cauchy-Schwarz divergence.
result Demonstrated superior performance on six real-world regression tasks.
CB-APM uses analyst consensus as a bottleneck to interpret stock returns.
problem Tackles the challenge of understanding and predicting stock returns using professional beliefs.
method Embeds analyst consensus as a structural bottleneck, treating it as a sufficient statistic for market information.
result CB-APM portfolios exhibit strong monotonic return gradients and robust across different economic conditions.
Deep learning networks have shown state-of-the-art performance in many image reconstruction problems. However, it is not well understood what properties of representation and learning may improve the generalization ability of the network. In this paper, we propose that the generalization ability of an encoder-decoder n…
Adversarial learning methods have been proposed for a wide range of applications, but the training of adversarial models can be notoriously unstable. Effectively balancing the performance of the generator and discriminator is critical, since a discriminator that achieves very high accuracy will produce relatively uninf…
Domain adaptation aims to leverage the supervision signal of source domain to obtain an accurate model for target domain, where the labels are not available. To leverage and adapt the label information from source domain, most existing methods employ a feature extracting function and match the marginal distributions of…
GIB improves neural network generalization by dynamically selecting task-relevant features across different sequential environments.
problem Poor generalization of deep neural networks to unseen environments.
method Proposes a gated information bottleneck (GIB) approach that dynamically drops spurious correlations and selects task-relevant features.
result GIB outperforms other IB approaches in adversarial robustness and OOD detection.
BF-VAE estimates uncertainty from LF and HF QoI samples.
problem Balancing computational efficiency and numerical accuracy in uncertainty quantification.
method Bi-fidelity formulation of VAEs in latent space.
result BF-VAE improves accuracy with limited HF data.
New method quantifies redundant information using information bottleneck.
problem Quantifying redundant information among multiple sources.
method Formulated as an information bottleneck problem, termed redundancy bottleneck.
result Extracts information that best predicts the target without revealing source identity.
GeoIB uses information geometry to control compression in deep learning models.
problem The indirect and biased nature of traditional IB implementations in deep learning.
method GeoIB uses Fisher-Rao and Jacobian-Frobenius terms to control information compression directly.
result GeoIB achieves better trade-off between accuracy and compression than traditional IB methods.
The paper studies phase transitions in Information Bottleneck for representation learning.
problem Understanding the behavior of compression and prediction terms in IB objective.
method Studied phase transitions in IB objective using second-order calculus of variations and Fisher information matrix.
result IB phase transitions correspond to learning new classes and are related to maximum correlation between input and target orthogonal to the learned representation.
Proposes Decodable Information Bottleneck for optimal representation learning.
problem Finding optimal representations for supervised learning.
method Integrates information retention and compression with the desired predictive family.
result Optimal representations lead to better expected test performance and can be estimated with guarantees.
A new bimodal generative model is proposed for generating conditional and joint samples, accompanied with a training method with learning a succinct bottleneck representation. The proposed model, dubbed as the variational Wyner model, is designed based on two classical problems in network information theory -- distribu…
The study improves representation learning bounds using data-dependent Gaussian mixtures.
problem Improving generalization in representation learning.
method Established bounds using relative entropy and MDL of latent variables.
result The approach significantly improves generalization over existing methods.
SCBMs model causal effects using low-dimensional bottlenecks.
problem Causal effect estimation in high-dimensional systems.
method Structural causal models with low-dimensional summary statistics.
result SCBMs provide a flexible framework for task-specific dimension reduction.
Extends likelihood ratio exponential families to analyze various optimization methods.
problem Analyzing optimization methods like rate-distortion and information bottleneck.
method Linking geometric mixture paths to exponential families and using hypothesis testing.
result Provides a common mathematical framework for understanding these methods.
Mutual information bounds generalization error in variational classifiers.
problem Controlling overfitting in variational classifiers.
method Derive bounds on generalization error using mutual information.
result Mutual information bounds the generalization error in variational classifiers.
Proposes IIB for domain generalization, overcoming failure modes of IRM.
problem Domain generalization with nonlinear classifiers and pseudo-invariant features.
method Invariant Information Bottleneck (IIB) using mutual information and variational formulation.
result Significantly outperforms IRM on synthetic datasets and real-world benchmarks.
Graph Information Bottleneck (GIB) optimizes graph representations for robustness against adversarial attacks.
problem Challenges in learning graph representations due to structure and feature information.
method GIB is an information-theoretic principle that balances expressiveness and robustness by maximizing mutual information between representation and target, while constraining mutual information with input data.
result GIB-based models are more robust to adversarial attacks, achieving up to 31% improvement.
A new method improves model generalization by recognizing representations.
problem Generalization issues in existing Information Bottlenecks.
method Recognizable Information Bottleneck (RIB) using f-CMI and density ratio matching.
result Improves model generalization through recognizability regularization.
Improved vector quantization using Gaussian mixtures for better codebook utilization.
problem Training instability and information loss in discrete vector quantization.
method Generalized vector quantization with Gaussian mixture model and aggregated categorical posterior evidence lower bound.
result GM-VQ improves codebook utilization and reduces information loss without heuristics.
Unified information-theoretic objectives for training deep neural networks.
problem Difficulty in computing information-theoretic quantities for large deep neural networks.
method Review and unify competing objectives, develop surrogate objectives.
result Surrogate objectives allow applying information bottleneck to modern neural network architectures.
CIB compresses variables causally, preserving key causal interactions.
problem Constructing causal variable abstractions in complex systems.
method Causal Information Bottleneck (CIB) method, extending IB to include causal structures.
result CIB produces causally interpretable abstractions that accurately capture causal relations.
New framework predicts time series with missing values without imputation.
problem Predicting time series with missing values, especially when there's no ground truth for missing data.
method CRIB framework, combining attention mechanism and consistency regularization.
result CRIB framework predicts accurately even under high missing rates.
Extends information bottleneck to multi-view unsupervised learning.
problem Identifying superfluous information in unlabeled multi-view data.
method Multi-view information bottleneck model, leveraging data augmentation.
result State-of-the-art results on Sketchy and MIR-Flickr datasets.