Related papers: GO Gradient for Expectation-Based Objectives
The reparameterization gradient has become a widely used method to obtain Monte Carlo gradients to optimize the variational objective. However, this technique does not easily apply to commonly used distributions such as beta or gamma…
An unbiased low-variance gradient estimator, termed GO gradient, was proposed recently for expectation-based objectives $\mathbb{E}_{q_{\boldsymbol{\gamma}}(\boldsymbol{y})} [f(\boldsymbol{y})]$, where the random variable (RV)…
Variational inference using the reparameterization trick has enabled large-scale approximate Bayesian inference in complex probabilistic models, leveraging stochastic optimization to sidestep intractable expectations. The reparameterization…
We present a new algorithm for stochastic variational inference that targets at models with non-differentiable densities. One of the key challenges in stochastic variational inference is to come up with a low-variance estimator of the…
By providing a simple and efficient way of computing low-variance gradients of continuous random variables, the reparameterization trick has become the technique of choice for training a variety of latent variable models. However, it is not…
Low-variance gradient estimation is crucial for learning directed graphical models parameterized by neural networks, where the reparameterization trick is widely used for those with continuous variables. While this technique gives…
This paper is a broad and accessible survey of the methods we have at our disposal for Monte Carlo gradient estimation in machine learning and across the statistical sciences: the problem of computing the gradient of an expectation of a…
The reparameterization trick has become one of the most useful tools in the field of variational inference. However, the reparameterization trick is based on the standardization transformation which restricts the scope of application of…
Optimization with noisy gradients has become ubiquitous in statistics and machine learning. Reparameterization gradients, or gradient estimates computed via the "reparameterization trick," represent a class of noisy gradients often used in…
Estimating the gradients of stochastic nodes in stochastic computational graphs is one of the crucial research questions in the deep generative modeling community, which enables the gradient descent optimization on neural network…
We study the foundations of variational inference, which frames posterior inference as an optimisation problem, for probabilistic programming. The dominant approach for optimisation in practice is stochastic gradient descent. In particular,…
Reinforcement learning methods for robotics are increasingly successful due to the constant development of better policy gradient techniques. A precise (low variance) and accurate (low bias) gradient estimator is crucial to face…
ReParameterization (RP) Policy Gradient Methods (PGMs) have been widely adopted for continuous control tasks in robotics and computer graphics. However, recent studies have revealed that, when applied to long-term reinforcement learning…
Stochastic gradient algorithm is a key ingredient of many machine learning methods, particularly appropriate for large-scale learning.However, a major caveat of large data is their incompleteness.We propose an averaged stochastic gradient…
Reparameterization (RP) and likelihood ratio (LR) gradient estimators are used throughout machine and reinforcement learning; however, they are usually explained as simple mathematical tricks without providing any insight into their nature.…
Distributionally robust optimization (DRO) problems are increasingly seen as a viable method to train machine learning models for improved model generalization. These min-max formulations, however, are more difficult to solve. We therefore…
We introduce a new algorithm for approximate inference that combines reparametrization, Markov chain Monte Carlo and variational methods. We construct a very flexible implicit variational distribution synthesized by an arbitrary Markov…
Reparameterization (RP) and likelihood ratio (LR) gradient estimators are used to estimate gradients of expectations throughout machine learning and reinforcement learning; however, they are usually explained as simple mathematical tricks,…
We consider the distributionally robust optimization (DRO) problem with spectral risk-based uncertainty set and $f$-divergence penalty. This formulation includes common risk-sensitive learning objectives such as regularized condition…
In a variety of problems originating in supervised, unsupervised, and reinforcement learning, the loss function is defined by an expectation over a collection of random variables, which might be part of a probabilistic model or the external…