Related papers: Gradient estimators for normalising flows

Stochastic optimization in learning and inference often relies on Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) to approximate gradients when exact computation is intractable. However, finite-time MCMC estimators are biased, and reducing this bias…

We introduce a gradient-based learning method to automatically adapt Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) proposal distributions to intractable targets. We define a maximum entropy regularised objective function, referred to as generalised speed…

Hamiltonian Monte Carlo is a widely used algorithm for sampling from posterior distributions of complex Bayesian models. It can efficiently explore high-dimensional parameter spaces guided by simulated Hamiltonian flows. However, the…

Continuous normalizing flows (CNFs) learn the probability path between a reference distribution and a target distribution by modeling the vector field generating said path using neural networks. Recently, Lipman et al. (2022) introduced a…

Recent work shows that path gradient estimators for normalizing flows have lower variance compared to standard estimators for variational inference, resulting in improved training. However, they are often prohibitively more expensive from a…

This paper introduces a Bayesian framework that combines Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling, dimensionality reduction, and neural density estimation to efficiently handle inverse problems that (i) must be solved multiple times, and…

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…

We propose a variance reduction framework for variational inference using the Multilevel Monte Carlo (MLMC) method. Our framework is built on reparameterized gradient estimators and "recycles" parameters obtained from past update history in…

Many machine learning problems involve Monte Carlo gradient estimators. As a prominent example, we focus on Monte Carlo variational inference (MCVI) in this paper. The performance of MCVI crucially depends on the variance of its stochastic…

Understanding stochastic gradient descent (SGD) and its variants is essential for machine learning. However, most of the preceding analyses are conducted under amenable conditions such as unbiased gradient estimator and bounded objective…

Stochastic gradient Markov chain Monte Carlo (SG-MCMC) has become increasingly popular for simulating posterior samples in large-scale Bayesian modeling. However, existing SG-MCMC schemes are not tailored to any specific probabilistic…

Machine learning techniques, in particular the so-called normalizing flows, are becoming increasingly popular in the context of Monte Carlo simulations as they can effectively approximate target probability distributions. In the case of…

We present a framework for Nesterov's accelerated gradient flows in probability space to design efficient mean-field Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms for Bayesian inverse problems. Here four examples of information metrics are…

Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) sampling methods provide a mechanism for defining distant proposals with high acceptance probabilities in a Metropolis-Hastings framework, enabling more efficient exploration of the state space than standard…

Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods sample from unnormalized probability distributions and offer guarantees of exact sampling. However, in the continuous case, unfavorable geometry of the target distribution can greatly limit the…

The problem of optimising functions with intractable gradients frequently arise in machine learning and statistics, ranging from maximum marginal likelihood estimation procedures to fine-tuning of generative models. Stochastic approximation…

In this paper, we propose a new stochastic optimization algorithm for Bayesian inference based on multilevel Monte Carlo (MLMC) methods. In Bayesian statistics, biased estimators of the model evidence have been often used as stochastic…

Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms are generally regarded as the gold standard technique for Bayesian inference. They are theoretically well-understood and conceptually simple to apply in practice. The drawback of MCMC is that in…

We design and implement a novel algorithm for computing a multilevel Monte Carlo (MLMC) estimator of the cumulative distribution function of a quantity of interest in problems with random input parameters or initial conditions. Our approach…

We present the \texttt{NeuMC} software package, based on \pytorch, aimed at facilitating the research on neural samplers in lattice field theories. Neural samplers based on normalizing flows are becoming increasingly popular in the context…