1,904 research outputs found
On the Anatomy of MCMC-Based Maximum Likelihood Learning of Energy-Based Models
This study investigates the effects of Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC)
sampling in unsupervised Maximum Likelihood (ML) learning. Our attention is
restricted to the family of unnormalized probability densities for which the
negative log density (or energy function) is a ConvNet. We find that many of
the techniques used to stabilize training in previous studies are not
necessary. ML learning with a ConvNet potential requires only a few
hyper-parameters and no regularization. Using this minimal framework, we
identify a variety of ML learning outcomes that depend solely on the
implementation of MCMC sampling.
On one hand, we show that it is easy to train an energy-based model which can
sample realistic images with short-run Langevin. ML can be effective and stable
even when MCMC samples have much higher energy than true steady-state samples
throughout training. Based on this insight, we introduce an ML method with
purely noise-initialized MCMC, high-quality short-run synthesis, and the same
budget as ML with informative MCMC initialization such as CD or PCD. Unlike
previous models, our energy model can obtain realistic high-diversity samples
from a noise signal after training.
On the other hand, ConvNet potentials learned with non-convergent MCMC do not
have a valid steady-state and cannot be considered approximate unnormalized
densities of the training data because long-run MCMC samples differ greatly
from observed images. We show that it is much harder to train a ConvNet
potential to learn a steady-state over realistic images. To our knowledge,
long-run MCMC samples of all previous models lose the realism of short-run
samples. With correct tuning of Langevin noise, we train the first ConvNet
potentials for which long-run and steady-state MCMC samples are realistic
images.Comment: Code available at: https://github.com/point0bar1/ebm-anatom
Investigation of automated task learning, decomposition and scheduling
The details and results of research conducted in the application of neural networks to task planning and decomposition are presented. Task planning and decomposition are operations that humans perform in a reasonably efficient manner. Without the use of good heuristics and usually much human interaction, automatic planners and decomposers generally do not perform well due to the intractable nature of the problems under consideration. The human-like performance of neural networks has shown promise for generating acceptable solutions to intractable problems such as planning and decomposition. This was the primary reasoning behind attempting the study. The basis for the work is the use of state machines to model tasks. State machine models provide a useful means for examining the structure of tasks since many formal techniques have been developed for their analysis and synthesis. It is the approach to integrate the strong algebraic foundations of state machines with the heretofore trial-and-error approach to neural network synthesis
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An improved connectionist activation function for energy minimization
Symmetric networks that are based on energy minimization, such as Boltzmann machines or Hopfield nets, are used extensively for optimization, constraint satisfaction, and approximation of NP-hard problems. Nevertheless, finding a global minimum for the energy function is not guaranteed, and even a local minimum may take an exponential number of steps. We propose an improvement to the standard activation function used for such networks. The improved algorithm guarantees that a global minimum is found in linear time for tree-like subnetworks. The algorithm is uniform and does not assume that the network is a tree. It performs no worse than the standard algorithms for any network topology. In the case where there are trees growing from a cyclic subnetwork, the new algorithm performs better than the standard algorithms by avoiding local minima along the trees and by optimizing the free energy of these trees in linear time. The algorithm is self-stabilizing for trees (cycle-free undirected graphs) and remains correct under various scheduling demons. However, no uniform protocol exists to optimize trees under a pure distributed demon and no such protocol exists for cyclic networks under central demon
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