Iterative Amortized Inference
Inference models are a key component in scaling variational inference to deep latent variable models, most notably as encoder networks in variational auto-encoders (VAEs). By replacing conventional optimization-based inference with a learned model, inference is amortized over data examples and therefore more computationally efficient. However, standard inference models are restricted to direct mappings from data to approximate posterior estimates. The failure of these models to reach fully optimized approximate posterior estimates results in an amortization gap. We aim toward closing this gap by proposing iterative inference models, which learn to perform inference optimization through repeatedly encoding gradients. Our approach generalizes standard inference models in VAEs and provides insight into several empirical findings, including top-down inference techniques. We demonstrate the inference optimization capabilities of iterative inference models and show that they outperform standard inference models on several benchmark data sets of images and text.
Code (1)
Tasks
Inference OptimizationVariational InferenceSimilar Papers 제목 키워드 기반
Iterative Amortized Hierarchical VAE
In this paper we propose the Iterative Amortized Hierarchical Variational Autoencoder (IA-HVAE), which expands on amortized inference with a hybrid scheme containing an initial amortized guess and iterative refinement wi…
Iterative Amortized Policy Optimization
Policy networks are a central feature of deep reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms for continuous control, enabling the estimation and sampling of high-value actions. From the variational inference perspective on RL, p…
continuous-controlContinuous ControlDeep Reinforcement Learningreinforcement-learning+2ASPIRE: Iterative Amortized Posterior Inference for Bayesian Inverse Problems
Due to their uncertainty quantification, Bayesian solutions to inverse problems are the framework of choice in applications that are risk averse. These benefits come at the cost of computations that are in general, intra…
Uncertainty QuantificationVariational InferenceRecursive Inference for Variational Autoencoders
Inference networks of traditional Variational Autoencoders (VAEs) are typically amortized, resulting in relatively inaccurate posterior approximation compared to instance-wise variational optimization. Recent semi-amorti…
Variational InferenceHybrid Predictive Coding: Inferring, Fast and Slow
Predictive coding is an influential model of cortical neural activity. It proposes that perceptual beliefs are furnished by sequentially minimising "prediction errors" - the differences between predicted and observed dat…
Bayesian InferenceObject Recognition