Uncertainty
On the Correlation between Individual Fairness and Predictive Accuracy in Probabilistic Models
Antonucci, Alessandro, Rossetto, Eric, Duvnjak, Ivan
We investigate individual fairness in generative probabilistic classifiers by analysing the robustness of posterior inferences to perturbations in private features. Building on established results in robustness analysis, we hypothesise a correlation between robustness and predictive accuracy, specifically, instances exhibiting greater robustness are more likely to be classified accurately. We empirically assess this hypothesis using a benchmark of fourteen datasets with fairness concerns, employing Bayesian networks as the underlying generative models. To address the computational complexity associated with robustness analysis over multiple private features with Bayesian networks, we reformulate the problem as a most probable explanation task in an auxiliary Markov random field. Our experiments confirm the hypothesis about the correlation, suggesting novel directions to mitigate the traditional trade-off between fairness and accuracy.
Ensemble Visualization With Variational Autoencoder
Wu, Cenyang, Yu, Qinhan, Zhou, Liang
We present a new method to visualize data ensembles by constructing structured probabilistic representations in latent spaces, i.e., lower-dimensional representations of spatial data features. Our approach transforms the spatial features of an ensemble into a latent space through feature space conversion and unsupervised learning using a variational autoencoder (VAE). The resulting latent spaces follow multivariate standard Gaussian distributions, enabling analytical computation of confidence intervals and density estimation of the probabilistic distribution that generates the data ensemble. Preliminary results on a weather forecasting ensemble demonstrate the effectiveness and versatility of our method.
Toward Ownership Understanding of Objects: Active Question Generation with Large Language Model and Probabilistic Generative Model
Hashimoto, Saki, Hasegawa, Shoichi, Ishikawa, Tomochika, Taniguchi, Akira, Hagiwara, Yoshinobu, Hafi, Lotfi El, Taniguchi, Tadahiro
Robots operating in daily life environments must understand object ownership to carry out instructions naturally given by users, such as "Bring me my cup." Without ownership knowledge, a robot cannot determine which object is being referred to when multiple similar objects exist. This problem is especially evident in kitchens, offices, or laboratories, where objects with similar appearances may belong to different individuals. Relying solely on perceptual features such as location or appearance is insufficient because ownership is inherently context-dependent and often determined by social conventions. Therefore, enabling robots to acquire ownership knowledge is a crucial step toward socially appropriate human-robot interaction. To enable robots to learn object ownership in daily life environments, it is essential to implement a question-generation mechanism that efficiently acquires necessary information. However, in real-world environments with large numbers of objects, this is impractical and imposes a heavy burden on users. Although robots can explore the environment to collect visual features of objects, it remains difficult to obtain ownership knowledge because it depends on users and context. Therefore, allowing robots to ask questions based on the current situation enables them to acquire ownership knowl-Saki Hashimoto is the presenter of this paper.
Safety filtering of robotic manipulation under environment uncertainty: a computational approach
Johansson, Anna, Lindmark, Daniel, Wiberg, Viktor, Servin, Martin
Abstract-- Robotic manipulation in dynamic and unstructured environments requires safety mechanisms that exploit what is known and what is uncertain about the world. Existing safety filters often assume full observability, limiting their applicability in real-world tasks. We propose a physics-based safety filtering scheme that leverages high-fidelity simulation to assess control policies under uncertainty in world parameters. The method combines dense rollout with nominal parameters and parallelizable sparse re-evaluation at critical state-transitions, quantified through generalized factors of safety for stable grasping and actuator limits, and targeted uncertainty reduction through probing actions. We demonstrate the approach in a simulated bimanual manipulation task with uncertain object mass and friction, showing that unsafe trajectories can be identified and filtered efficiently. Our results highlight physics-based sparse safety evaluation as a scalable strategy for safe robotic manipulation under uncertainty. The growing deployment of autonomous robots beyond traditional assembly-line settings presents an increasing need for control schemes capable of handling complex and dynamic environments while guaranteeing both task success and safety.
Exact alternative optima for nonlinear optimization problems defined with maximum component objective function constrained by the Sugeno-Weber fuzzy relational inequalities
Ghodousian, Amin, Zal, Sara, Ahmadi, Minoo
In this paper, we study a latticized optimization problem with fuzzy relational inequality constraints where the feasible region is formed as the intersection of two inequality fuzzy systems and Sugeno - Weber family of t - norms is considered as fuzzy composition. Sugeno - Weber family of t - norms and t - conorms is one of the most applied one in various fuzzy modelling problems. Thi s family of t - norms and t - conorms was suggested by Weber for modeling intersection and union of fuzzy sets. Also, the t - conorms were suggested as addition rules by Sugeno for so - called - fuzzy measures. The resolution of the feasible region of the problem is firstly investigated when it is defined with max - Sugeno - Weber composition and a necessary and sufficient condition is presented for determining the feasibility. Then, based on some theoretical properties of the problem, an algorithm is presented for sol ving this nonlinear problem. It is proved that the algorithm can find the exact optimal solution and an example is presented to illustrate the proposed algorithm.
Physical Complexity of a Cognitive Artifact
Kardeล, Gรผlce, Krakauer, David, Grochow, Joshua
There are currently two well established domains for studying general problem solving. The first describes strategies used by humans on both experimental and real-world tasks. Human problem solving is captured through a number of frameworks including skill acquisition [1] and automaticity [2], the application of expert knowledge [3, 4], the use of heuristics [5, 6], reinforcement learning and conditioning [7, 8], Bayesian inference [9, 10], analogy making [11, 12], collective intelligence and cognition [13, 14], simulation intelligence [15], the use of external representations [16, 17] and the synergy of mind and matter through exbodiment [18]. The second domain, computational problem solving, investigates algorithms that enable computers to tackle problems effectively . Within this domain, two branches especially pertinent to the present question are: (i) computational complexity theory, which analyzes the resources (time, memory, etc.) required to solve problems as functions of input size, typically in the asymptotic limit; and (ii) the study of search algorithms, which seeks efficient solutions to specific tasks (e.g., games and puzzles) by exploiting the combinatorial structure of state spaces, often via heuristics [19-22].
Deriving the Scaled-Dot-Function via Maximum Likelihood Estimation and Maximum Entropy Approach
In this paper, we present a maximum likelihood estimation approach to determine the value vector in transformer models. We model the sequence of value vectors, key vectors, and the query vector as a sequence of Gaussian distributions. The variance in each Gaussian distribution depends on the time step, the corresponding key vector, and the query vector. The mean value in each Gaussian distribution depends on the time step, and the corresponding value vector. This analysis may offer a new explanation of the scaled-dot-product function or softmax function used in transformer architectures [1]. Another explanation, inspired by [4], is based on the maximum entropy approach in natural language processing [5]. In this approach, a query vector and key vectors are used to derive the feature functions for the maximum entropy model.
InJecteD: Analyzing Trajectories and Drift Dynamics in Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models for 2D Point Cloud Generation
Jain, Sanyam, Naveed, Khuram, Oleksiienko, Illia, Iosifidis, Alexandros, Pauwels, Ruben
This work introduces InJecteD, a framework for interpreting Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models (DDPMs) by analyzing sample trajectories during the denoising process of 2D point cloud generation. We apply this framework to three datasets from the Datasaurus Dozen bullseye, dino, and circle using a simplified DDPM architecture with customizable input and time embeddings. Our approach quantifies trajectory properties, including displacement, velocity, clustering, and drift field dynamics, using statistical metrics such as Wasserstein distance and cosine similarity. By enhancing model transparency, InJecteD supports human AI collaboration by enabling practitioners to debug and refine generative models. Experiments reveal distinct denoising phases: initial noise exploration, rapid shape formation, and final refinement, with dataset-specific behaviors example, bullseyes concentric convergence vs. dinos complex contour formation. We evaluate four model configurations, varying embeddings and noise schedules, demonstrating that Fourier based embeddings improve trajectory stability and reconstruction quality
Strategic Concealment of Environment Representations in Competitive Games
Guan, Yue, Maity, Dipankar, Tsiotras, Panagiotis
This paper investigates the strategic concealment of environment representations used by players in competitive games. We consider a defense scenario in which one player (the Defender) seeks to infer and exploit the representation used by the other player (the Attacker). The interaction between the two players is modeled as a Bayesian game: the Defender infers the Attacker's representation from its trajectory and places barriers to obstruct the Attacker's path towards its goal, while the Attacker obfuscates its representation type to mislead the Defender. We solve for the Perfect Bayesian Nash Equilibrium via a bilinear program that integrates Bayesian inference, strategic planning, and belief manipulation. Simulations show that purposeful concealment naturally emerges: the Attacker randomizes its trajectory to manipulate the Defender's belief, inducing suboptimal barrier selections and thereby gaining a strategic advantage.
MMM: Clustering Multivariate Longitudinal Mixed-type Data
Amato, Francesco, Jacques, Julien
Multivariate longitudinal data of mixed-type are increasingly collected in many science domains. However, algorithms to cluster this kind of data remain scarce, due to the challenge to simultaneously model the within- and between-time dependence structures for multivariate data of mixed kind. We introduce the Mixture of Mixed-Matrices (MMM) model: reorganizing the data in a three-way structure and assuming that the non-continuous variables are observations of underlying latent continuous variables, the model relies on a mixture of matrix-variate normal distributions to perform clustering in the latent dimension. The MMM model is thus able to handle continuous, ordinal, binary, nominal and count data and to concurrently model the heterogeneity, the association among the responses and the temporal dependence structure in a parsimonious way and without assuming conditional independence. The inference is carried out through an MCMC-EM algorithm, which is detailed. An evaluation of the model through synthetic data shows its inference abilities. A real-world application on financial data is presented.