Sticking the Landing: Simple, Lower-Variance Gradient Estimators for Variational Inference
We propose a simple and general variant of the standard reparameterized gradient estimator for the variational evidence lower bound. Specifically, we remove a part of the total derivative with respect to the variational parameters that corresponds to the score function. Removing this term produces an unbiased gradient estimator whose variance approaches zero as the approximate posterior approaches the exact posterior. We analyze the behavior of this gradient estimator theoretically and empirically, and generalize it to more complex variational distributions such as mixtures and importance-weighted posteriors.
Code (1)
Tasks
Variational InferenceSimilar Papers 제목 키워드 기반
Linear Convergence of Black-Box Variational Inference: Should We Stick the Landing?
We prove that black-box variational inference (BBVI) with control variates, particularly the sticking-the-landing (STL) estimator, converges at a geometric (traditionally called "linear") rate under perfect variational f…
Variational InferenceOn importance-weighted autoencoders
The importance weighted autoencoder (IWAE) (Burda et al., 2016) is a popular variational-inference method which achieves a tighter evidence bound (and hence a lower bias) than standard variational autoencoders by optimis…
Variational InferencePotential UAV Landing Sites Detection through Digital Elevation Models Analysis
In this paper, a simple technique for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) potential landing site detection using terrain information through identification of flat areas, is presented. The algorithm utilizes digital elevatio…
SIMPLE: A Gradient Estimator for $k$-Subset Sampling
$k$-subset sampling is ubiquitous in machine learning, enabling regularization and interpretability through sparsity. The challenge lies in rendering $k$-subset sampling amenable to end-to-end learning. This has typicall…
Antenna system for trilateral drone precise vertical landing
This article presents a radio frequency system that can be used to perform precise vertical landings of drones. The system is based on the three-way phase shift detection of a signal transmitted from the landing point. T…