Related papers: Beyond MLE: Convex Learning for Text Generation

Generative models form the backbone of modern machine learning, underpinning state-of-the-art systems in text, vision, and multimodal applications. While Maximum Likelihood Estimation has traditionally served as the dominant training…

We study the problem of estimating the distribution of the return of a policy using an offline dataset that is not generated from the policy, i.e., distributional offline policy evaluation (OPE). We propose an algorithm called Fitted…

To meet the requirements of real-world applications, it is essential to control generations of large language models (LLMs). Prior research has tried to introduce reinforcement learning (RL) into controllable text generation while most…

According to standard econometric theory, Maximum Likelihood estimation (MLE) is the efficient estimation choice, however, it is not always a feasible one. In network diffusion models with unobserved signal propagation, MLE requires…

Inference is typically intractable in high-treewidth undirected graphical models, making maximum likelihood learning a challenge. One way to overcome this is to restrict parameters to a tractable set, most typically the set of…

Autoregressive neural language models (LMs) generate a probability distribution over tokens at each time step given a prompt. In this work, we attempt to systematically understand the probability distributions that LMs can produce, showing…

Over the last decades, the family of $\alpha$-stale distributions has proven to be useful for modelling in telecommunication systems. Particularly, in the case of radar applications, finding a fast and accurate estimation for the amplitude…

We address the challenge of performing Targeted Maximum Likelihood Estimation (TMLE) after an initial Highly Adaptive Lasso (HAL) fit. Existing approaches that utilize the data-adaptive working model selected by HAL-such as the relaxed HAL…

We propose a self-supervised learning approach for solving the following constrained optimization task in log-linear models or Markov networks. Let $f$ and $g$ be two log-linear models defined over the sets $\mathbf{X}$ and $\mathbf{Y}$ of…

Maximum likelihood estimation problems are, in general, intractable optimization problems. As a result, it is common to approximate the maximum likelihood estimator (MLE) using convex relaxations. In some cases, the relaxation is tight: it…

We describe $k$-MLE, a fast and efficient local search algorithm for learning finite statistical mixtures of exponential families such as Gaussian mixture models. Mixture models are traditionally learned using the expectation-maximization…

Background: Advanced methods for causal inference, such as targeted maximum likelihood estimation (TMLE), require certain conditions for statistical inference. However, in situations where there is not differentiability due to data sparsity…

A common training approach for language models involves using a large-scale language model to expand a human-provided dataset, which is subsequently used for model training.This method significantly reduces training costs by eliminating the…

A preference order or ranking aggregated from pairwise comparison data is commonly understood as a strict total order. However, in real-world scenarios, some items are intrinsically ambiguous in comparisons, which may very well be an…

Exact MLE for generalized linear mixed models (GLMMs) is a long-standing problem unsolved until today. The proposed research solves the problem. In this problem, the main difficulty is caused by intractable integrals in the likelihood…

Large language models (LLMs) have emerged as a widely-used tool for information seeking, but their generated outputs are prone to hallucination. In this work, our aim is to allow LLMs to generate text with citations, improving their factual…

Large Language Models (LLMs) have shown impressive abilities in many applications. When a concrete and precise answer is desired, it is important to have a quantitative estimation of the potential error rate. However, this can be…

With an eye towards human-centered automation, we contribute to the development of a systematic means to infer features of human decision-making from behavioral data. Motivated by the common use of softmax selection in models of human…

Purpose: We address the challenge of inaccurate parameter estimation in diffusion MRI when the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is very low, as in the spinal cord. The accuracy of conventional maximum-likelihood estimation (MLE) depends highly…

We use the Reward Biased Maximum Likelihood Estimation (RBMLE) algorithm to learn optimal policies for constrained Markov Decision Processes (CMDPs). We analyze the learning regrets of RBMLE.