He, Dong
Behavior evolution-inspired approach to walking gait reinforcement training for quadruped robots
Wang, Yu, Jia, Wenchuan, Sun, Yi, He, Dong
Reinforcement learning method is extremely competitive in gait generation techniques for quadrupedal robot, which is mainly due to the fact that stochastic exploration in reinforcement training is beneficial to achieve an autonomous gait. Nevertheless, although incremental reinforcement learning is employed to improve training success and movement smoothness by relying on the continuity inherent during limb movements, challenges remain in adapting gait policy to diverse terrain and external disturbance. Inspired by the association between reinforcement learning and the evolution of animal motion behavior, a self-improvement mechanism for reference gait is introduced in this paper to enable incremental learning of action and self-improvement of reference action together to imitate the evolution of animal motion behavior. Further, a new framework for reinforcement training of quadruped gait is proposed. In this framework, genetic algorithm is specifically adopted to perform global probabilistic search for the initial value of the arbitrary foot trajectory to update the reference trajectory with better fitness. Subsequently, the improved reference gait is used for incremental reinforcement learning of gait. The above process is repeatedly and alternatively executed to finally train the gait policy. The analysis considering terrain, model dimensions, and locomotion condition is presented in detail based on simulation, and the results show that the framework is significantly more adaptive to terrain compared to regular incremental reinforcement learning.
Task Me Anything
Zhang, Jieyu, Huang, Weikai, Ma, Zixian, Michel, Oscar, He, Dong, Gupta, Tanmay, Ma, Wei-Chiu, Farhadi, Ali, Kembhavi, Aniruddha, Krishna, Ranjay
Benchmarks for large multimodal language models (MLMs) now serve to simultaneously assess the general capabilities of models instead of evaluating for a specific capability. As a result, when a developer wants to identify which models to use for their application, they are overwhelmed by the number of benchmarks and remain uncertain about which benchmark's results are most reflective of their specific use case. This paper introduces Task-Me-Anything, a benchmark generation engine which produces a benchmark tailored to a user's needs. Task-Me-Anything maintains an extendable taxonomy of visual assets and can programmatically generate a vast number of task instances. Additionally, it algorithmically addresses user queries regarding MLM performance efficiently within a computational budget. It contains 113K images, 10K videos, 2K 3D object assets, over 365 object categories, 655 attributes, and 335 relationships. It can generate 750M image/video question-answering pairs, which focus on evaluating MLM perceptual capabilities. Task-Me-Anything reveals critical insights: open-source MLMs excel in object and attribute recognition but lack spatial and temporal understanding; each model exhibits unique strengths and weaknesses; larger models generally perform better, though exceptions exist; and GPT4o demonstrates challenges in recognizing rotating/moving objects and distinguishing colors.
Demonstration of MaskSearch: Efficiently Querying Image Masks for Machine Learning Workflows
Wei, Lindsey Linxi, Yeung, Chung Yik Edward, Yu, Hongjian, Zhou, Jingchuan, He, Dong, Balazinska, Magdalena
We demonstrate MaskSearch, a system designed to accelerate queries over databases of image masks generated by machine learning models. MaskSearch formalizes and accelerates a new category of queries for retrieving images and their corresponding masks based on mask properties, which support various applications, from identifying spurious correlations learned by models to exploring discrepancies between model saliency and human attention. This demonstration makes the following contributions:(1) the introduction of MaskSearch's graphical user interface (GUI), which enables interactive exploration of image databases through mask properties, (2) hands-on opportunities for users to explore MaskSearch's capabilities and constraints within machine learning workflows, and (3) an opportunity for conference attendees to understand how MaskSearch accelerates queries over image masks.
MaskSearch: Querying Image Masks at Scale
He, Dong, Zhang, Jieyu, Daum, Maureen, Ratner, Alexander, Balazinska, Magdalena
Machine learning tasks over image databases often generate masks that annotate image content (e.g., saliency maps, segmentation maps, depth maps) and enable a variety of applications (e.g., determine if a model is learning spurious correlations or if an image was maliciously modified to mislead a model). While queries that retrieve examples based on mask properties are valuable to practitioners, existing systems do not support them efficiently. In this paper, we formalize the problem and propose MaskSearch, a system that focuses on accelerating queries over databases of image masks while guaranteeing the correctness of query results. MaskSearch leverages a novel indexing technique and an efficient filter-verification query execution framework. Experiments with our prototype show that MaskSearch, using indexes approximately 5% of the compressed data size, accelerates individual queries by up to two orders of magnitude and consistently outperforms existing methods on various multi-query workloads that simulate dataset exploration and analysis processes.
DeepEverest: Accelerating Declarative Top-K Queries for Deep Neural Network Interpretation
He, Dong, Daum, Maureen, Cai, Walter, Balazinska, Magdalena
A widely used interpretation by example We design, implement, and evaluate DeepEverest, a system for the query is, "find the top-inputs that produce the highest activation efficient execution of interpretation by example queries over the values for an individual neuron or a group of neurons" [12, 14, 21, activation values of a deep neural network. DeepEverest consists 33, 50, 57, 58, 61]. Another common query is, "for any input, find of an efficient indexing technique and a query execution algorithm the k-nearest neighbors in the dataset using the activation values of a with various optimizations. We prove that the proposed query group of neurons based on the proximity in the latent space defined execution algorithm is instance optimal.
Query Processing on Tensor Computation Runtimes
He, Dong, Nakandala, Supun, Banda, Dalitso, Sen, Rathijit, Saur, Karla, Park, Kwanghyun, Curino, Carlo, Camacho-Rodríguez, Jesús, Karanasos, Konstantinos, Interlandi, Matteo
The huge demand for computation in artificial intelligence (AI) is driving unparalleled investments in hardware and software systems for AI. This leads to an explosion in the number of specialized hardware devices, which are now offered by major cloud vendors. By hiding the low-level complexity through a tensor-based interface, tensor computation runtimes (TCRs) such as PyTorch allow data scientists to efficiently exploit the exciting capabilities offered by the new hardware. In this paper, we explore how database management systems can ride the wave of innovation happening in the AI space. We design, build, and evaluate Tensor Query Processor (TQP): TQP transforms SQL queries into tensor programs and executes them on TCRs. TQP is able to run the full TPC-H benchmark by implementing novel algorithms for relational operators on the tensor routines. At the same time, TQP can support various hardware while only requiring a fraction of the usual development effort. Experiments show that TQP can improve query execution time by up to 10$\times$ over specialized CPU- and GPU-only systems. Finally, TQP can accelerate queries mixing ML predictions and SQL end-to-end, and deliver up to 9$\times$ speedup over CPU baselines.
Share the Tensor Tea: How Databases can Leverage the Machine Learning Ecosystem
Asada, Yuki, Fu, Victor, Gandhi, Apurva, Gemawat, Advitya, Zhang, Lihao, He, Dong, Gupta, Vivek, Nosakhare, Ehi, Banda, Dalitso, Sen, Rathijit, Interlandi, Matteo
We demonstrate Tensor Query Processor (TQP): a query processor that automatically compiles relational operators into tensor programs. By leveraging tensor runtimes such as PyTorch, TQP is able to: (1) integrate with ML tools (e.g., Pandas for data ingestion, Tensorboard for visualization); (2) target different hardware (e.g., CPU, GPU) and software (e.g., browser) backends; and (3) end-to-end accelerate queries containing both relational and ML operators. TQP is generic enough to support the TPC-H benchmark, and it provides performance that is comparable to, and often better than, that of specialized CPU and GPU query processors.