MCMC for Hierarchical Semi-Markov Conditional Random Fields

Deep architecture such as hierarchical semi-Markov models is an important class of models for nested sequential data. Current exact inference schemes either cost cubic time in sequence length, or exponential time in model depth. These costs are prohibitive for large-scale problems with arbitrary length and depth. In this contribution, we propose a new approximation technique that may have the potential to achieve sub-cubic time complexity in length and linear time depth, at the cost of some loss of quality. The idea is based on two well-known methods: Gibbs sampling and Rao-Blackwellisation. We provide some simulation-based evaluation of the quality of the RGBS with respect to run time and sequence length.

Discrete Restricted Boltzmann Machines

We describe discrete restricted Boltzmann machines: probabilistic graphical models with bipartite interactions between visible and hidden discrete variables. Examples are binary restricted Boltzmann machines and discrete naive Bayes models. We detail the inference functions and distributed representations arising in these models in terms of configurations of projected products of simplices and normal fans of products of simplices. We bound the number of hidden variables, depending on the cardinalities of their state spaces, for which these models can approximate any probability distribution on their visible states to any given accuracy. In addition, we use algebraic methods and coding theory to compute their dimension.

On Tracking The Partition Function

Markov Random Fields (MRFs) have proven very powerful both as density estimators and feature extractors for classification. However, their use is often limited by an inability to estimate the partition function $Z$. In this paper, we exploit the gradient descent training procedure of restricted Boltzmann machines (a type of MRF) to {\bf track} the log partition function during learning. Our method relies on two distinct sources of information: (1) estimating the change $\Delta Z$ incurred by each gradient update, (2) estimating the difference in $Z$ over a small set of tempered distributions using bridge sampling. The two sources of information are then combined using an inference procedure similar to Kalman filtering. Learning MRFs through Tempered Stochastic Maximum Likelihood, we can estimate $Z$ using no more temperatures than are required for learning. Comparing to both exact values and estimates using annealed importance sampling (AIS), we show on several datasets that our method is able to accurately track the log partition function. In contrast to AIS, our method provides this estimate at each time-step, at a computational cost similar to that required for training alone.

Korean IBM Watson to launch in 2017 ZDNet

IBM will launch a Korean version of its AI platform Watson next year in cooperation with local IT service vendor SK C&C, the companies have announced. SK announced Monday that it signed a cooperation agreement with Big Blue on May 4 and will together build an integrated system to market Watson in South Korea. They will develop Korean data analysis solutions based on machine learning and natural language semantic analysis technology for Watson within this year, and will commercialise it sometime in the first half of 2017, SK said. IBM and SK will also build a "Watson Cloud Platform" at the Korean company's datacentre in Pangyo -- the local version of Silicon Valley -- that IT developers and managers can access to make their own applications. For example, an open market business can apply the Watson solution to its product search features to make a personalized contents recommendation solution.

Neuroscientists Transform Brain Activity to Speech with AI

Artificial intelligence is enabling many scientific breakthroughs, especially in fields of study that generate high volumes of complex data such as neuroscience. As impossible as it may seem, neuroscientists are making strides in decoding neural activity into speech using artificial neural networks. Yesterday, the neuroscience team of Gopala K. Anumanchipalli, Josh Chartier, and Edward F. Chang of University of California San Francisco (UCSF) published in Nature their study using artificial intelligence and a state-of-the-art brain-machine interface to produce synthetic speech from brain recordings. The concept is relatively straightforward--record the brain activity and audio of participants while they are reading aloud in order to create a system that decodes brain signals for vocal tract movements, then synthesize speech from the decoded movements. The execution of the concept required sophisticated finessing of cutting-edge AI techniques and tools.