Industry
Sketch-GNN: Scalable Graph Neural Networks with Sublinear Training Complexity
Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) are widely applied to graph learning problems such as node classification. When scaling up the underlying graphs of GNNs to a larger size, we are forced to either train on the complete graph and keep the full graph adjacency and node embeddings in memory (which is often infeasible) or mini-batch sample the graph (which results in exponentially growing computational complexities with respect to the number of GNN layers). Various sampling-based and historical-embedding-based methods are proposed to avoid this exponential growth of complexities. However, none of these solutions eliminates the linear dependence on graph size. This paper proposes a sketch-based algorithm whose training time and memory grow sublinearly with respect to graph size by training GNNs atop a few compact sketches of graph adjacency and node embeddings. Based on polynomial tensor-sketch (PTS) theory, our framework provides a novel protocol for sketching non-linear activations and graph convolution matrices in GNNs, as opposed to existing methods that sketch linear weights or gradients in neural networks. In addition, we develop a locality sensitive hashing (LSH) technique that can be trained to improve the quality of sketches. Experiments on large-graph benchmarks demonstrate the scalability and competitive performance of our Sketch-GNNs versus their full-size GNN counterparts.
Enhancing Robot Program Synthesis Through Environmental Context
Program synthesis aims to automatically generate an executable program that conforms to the given specification. Recent advancements have demonstrated that deep neural methodologies and large-scale pretrained language models are highly proficient in capturing program semantics. For robot programming, prior works have facilitated program synthesis by incorporating global environments. However, the assumption of acquiring a comprehensive understanding of the entire environment is often excessively challenging to achieve. In this work, we present a framework that learns to synthesize a program by rectifying potentially erroneous code segments, with the aid of partially observed environments. To tackle the issue of inadequate attention to partial observations, we propose to first learn an environment embedding space that can implicitly evaluate the impacts of each program token based on the precondition. Furthermore, by employing a graph structure, the model can aggregate both environmental and syntactic information flow and furnish smooth program rectification guidance. Extensive experimental evaluations and ablation studies on the partially observed VizDoom domain authenticate that our method offers superior generalization capability across various tasks and greater robustness when encountering noises.
Results
In this section we prove the theoretical results around the dual curriculum game and use these results to show approximation bounds for our methods, given that they have reached a Nash equilibrium (NE). The first theorem is the main result that allows us to analyze dual curriculum games. The high-level result says that the NE of a dual curriculum game are approximate NE of the base game from the perspective of any of the individual players, or from the perspective of the joint strategy. Let Bbe the maximum difference between U1t and U2t, and let (π,θ1,θ2) be a NE for G. Then (π,pθ1 + (1 p)θ2) is an approximate NE for the base game with either teacher or for a teacher optimizing their joint objective. More precisely, it is a 2Bp(1 p)-approximate NE when Ut = pU1t + (1 p)U2t, a 2B(1 p)-approximate NE when Ut = U1t, and a 2Bp-approximate NE when Ut = U2t. At a high level, this is true because, for low values of p, the best-response strategies for the individual players can be thought of as approximate-best response strategies for the joint-player, and vis-versa. Since the Nash Equilibrium consists of each of the players playing their own best response, they must be playing an approximate best response for the joint-player. We provide a formal proof below: Proof. Let B be the maximum difference between U1t and U2t, and let (π,θ1,θ2) be a Nash Equilibrium for G. Then consider pθ1 + (1 p)θ2 as a strategy in the base game for the joint player pU1t + (1 p)U2t.
Wisdom of the Crowd Voting: Truthful Aggregation of Voter Information and Preferences
We consider two-alternative elections where voters' preferences depend on a state variable that is not directly observable. Each voter receives a private signal that is correlated to the state variable. Voters may be "contingent" with different preferences in different states; or predetermined with the same preference in every state. In this setting, even if every voter is a contingent voter, agents voting according to their private information need not result in the adoption of the universally preferred alternative, because the signals can be systematically biased. We present an easy-to-deploy mechanism that elicits and aggregates the private signals from the voters, and outputs the alternative that is favored by the majority. In particular, voters truthfully reporting their signals forms a strong Bayes Nash equilibrium (where no coalition of voters can deviate and receive a better outcome).
Shift Invariance Can Reduce Adversarial Robustness
Shift invariance is a critical property of CNNs that improves performance on classification. However, we show that invariance to circular shifts can also lead to greater sensitivity to adversarial attacks. We first characterize the margin between classes when a shift-invariant linear classifier is used. We show that the margin can only depend on the DC component of the signals. Then, using results about infinitely wide networks, we show that in some simple cases, fully connected and shift-invariant neural networks produce linear decision boundaries. Using this, we prove that shift invariance in neural networks produces adversarial examples for the simple case of two classes, each consisting of a single image with a black or white dot on a gray background. This is more than a curiosity; we show empirically that with real datasets and realistic architectures, shift invariance reduces adversarial robustness. Finally, we describe initial experiments using synthetic data to probe the source of this connection.
Designer Baby Companies Are in Turmoil
Bootstrap Bio and Manhattan Genomics, which were pursuing gene editing in human embryos to prevent serious disease, have shut down. Two companies that launched last year with plans to create gene-edited babies have already shut down, citing money issues and internal conflict. One of them, Manhattan Genomics of New York, closed abruptly shortly after announcing a team of scientific advisers in October that included a prominent fertility doctor, a data scientist who worked for de-extinction company Colossal Biosciences, and a scientist who pioneered a "three-parent" IVF technique. The other, California-based Bootstrap Bio, said it ceased operations in late 2025, as first reported by Mother Jones. Manhattan Genomics and Bootstrap Bio had ambitions to edit DNA in human embryos with the goal of preventing serious disease in babies.