Related papers: Word learning under infinite uncertainty
Consider a predictor who ranks eventualities on the basis of past cases: for instance a search engine ranking webpages given past searches. Resampling past cases leads to different rankings and the extraction of deeper information. Yet a…
The set of finite words over a well-quasi-ordered set is itself well-quasi-ordered. This seminal result by Higman is a cornerstone of the theory of well-quasi-orderings and has found numerous applications in computer science. However, this…
In this paper we explore a new hierarchy of classes of languages and infinite words and its connection with complexity classes. Namely, we say that a language belongs to the class $L_k$ if it is a subset of the catenation of $k$ languages…
We study the problem of choosing optimal policy rules in uncertain environments using models that may be incomplete and/or partially identified. We consider a policymaker who wishes to choose a policy to maximize a particular counterfactual…
This thesis presents a computational theory of unsupervised language acquisition, precisely defining procedures for learning language from ordinary spoken or written utterances, with no explicit help from a teacher. The theory is based…
Learning to read words aloud is a major step towards becoming a reader. Many children struggle with the task because of the inconsistencies of English spelling-sound correspondences. Curricula vary enormously in how these patterns are…
For human children as well as machine learning systems, a key challenge in learning a word is linking the word to the visual phenomena it describes. We explore this aspect of word learning by using the performance of computer vision systems…
The eventual goal of a language model is to accurately predict the value of a missing word given its context. We present an approach to word prediction that is based on learning a representation for each word as a function of words and…
A major problem in machine learning is that of inductive bias: how to choose a learner's hypothesis space so that it is large enough to contain a solution to the problem being learnt, yet small enough to ensure reliable generalization from…
How do learners acquire languages from the limited data available to them? This process must involve some inductive biases - factors that affect how a learner generalizes - but it is unclear which inductive biases can explain observed…
Among the various forms of reasoning studied in the context of artificial intelligence, qualitative reasoning makes it possible to infer new knowledge in the context of imprecise, incomplete information without numerical values. In this…
In this paper, we derive a notion of 'word meaning in context' that characterizes meaning as both intensional and conceptual. We introduce a framework for specifying local as well as global constraints on word meaning in context, together…
Neural network-based systems can now learn to locate the referents of words and phrases in images, answer questions about visual scenes, and execute symbolic instructions as first-person actors in partially-observable worlds. To achieve…
Causal learning is the cognitive process of developing the capability of making causal inferences based on available information, often guided by normative principles. This process is prone to errors and biases, such as the illusion of…
Like students facing hard exam questions, large language models sometimes guess when uncertain, producing plausible yet incorrect statements instead of admitting uncertainty. Such "hallucinations" persist even in state-of-the-art systems…
Characterizing aleatoric and epistemic uncertainty on the predicted rewards can help in building reliable reinforcement learning (RL) systems. Aleatoric uncertainty results from the irreducible environment stochasticity leading to…
We study the subject of universal online learning with non-i.i.d. processes for bounded losses. The notion of an universally consistent learning was defined by Hanneke in an effort to study learning theory under minimal assumptions, where…
In dictionary learning, also known as sparse coding, the algorithm is given samples of the form $y = Ax$ where $x\in \mathbb{R}^m$ is an unknown random sparse vector and $A$ is an unknown dictionary matrix in $\mathbb{R}^{n\times m}$…
Existing observational approaches for learning human preferences, such as inverse reinforcement learning, usually make strong assumptions about the observability of the human's environment. However, in reality, people make many important…
We consider the problem of online learning where the sequence of actions played by the learner must adhere to an unknown safety constraint at every round. The goal is to minimize regret with respect to the best safe action in hindsight…