{"id":442986,"date":"2017-11-28T05:17:49","date_gmt":"2017-11-28T13:17:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/?post_type=msr-project&#038;p=442986"},"modified":"2017-11-29T09:01:38","modified_gmt":"2017-11-29T17:01:38","slug":"stochastic-neural-networks","status":"publish","type":"msr-project","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/project\/stochastic-neural-networks\/","title":{"rendered":"Stochastic Neural Networks"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>Will machines one day be as creative as humans?<\/h3>\n<p>When we write a letter, have a conversation, or draw a picture, we exercise a uniquely human skill by creating complex artifacts that embody information. Current AI technology cannot yet match human ability in this area because it fails to have the same understanding of the world in terms of independent causal factors. Without such understanding AI systems cannot compose information in the rich ways a human could.<\/p>\n<p>Instead, current successful AI technology requires a large amount of supervised data in order to learn different plausible combinations of independent variations.\u00a0In the stochastic neural network project we aim to build the next generation of deep learning models which are more data-efficient and can enable machines to learn more efficiently and eventually to be truly creative.<\/p>\n<h3>Research Direction<\/h3>\n<p>Research in the stochastic neural networks project addresses this research challenge along three lines:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>\n<div>Developing novel algorithms for deep probabilistic models;<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>Learning disentangled representations of complex data;<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>Applications of deep probabilistic models to applications.<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h3>Novel Algorithms for Deep Probabilistic Models<\/h3>\n<p>We analyze and improve important algorithms for generative models such as methods for generative adversarial networks, models based on integral probability metrics, and variational autoencoders.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_443001\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-443001\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-443001\" src=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/f-gan-300x81.png\" alt=\"f-GAN variational lower bound.\" width=\"300\" height=\"81\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/f-gan-300x81.png 300w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/f-gan.png 664w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-443001\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Variational characterization of f-divergences in f-GAN.<\/p><\/div>\n<h3>Learning Disentangled Representations of Complex Data<\/h3>\n<p>We develop novel models to learn latent factor representations of complex data, including models that can learn disentangled representations using minimal supervision.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_442998\" style=\"width: 217px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-442998\" class=\" wp-image-442998\" src=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/ml-vae-style-transfer-300x294.png\" alt=\"Style transfer demonstrated on face images.\" width=\"207\" height=\"203\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/ml-vae-style-transfer-300x294.png 300w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/ml-vae-style-transfer.png 468w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 207px) 100vw, 207px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-442998\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Disentangled representation of faces, allowing style transfer between people.<\/p><\/div>\n<h3>Applications of Deep Probabilistic Models to Applications<\/h3>\n<p>We apply deep probabilistic models to challenging applications with heteroscedastic uncertainty; application areas include computer vision, reinforcement learning, and natural language models.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_443004\" style=\"width: 440px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-443004\" class=\" wp-image-443004\" src=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/resnet-gan-comparison-1-300x92.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"430\" height=\"132\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/resnet-gan-comparison-1-300x92.png 300w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/resnet-gan-comparison-1-768x235.png 768w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/resnet-gan-comparison-1-1024x314.png 1024w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/resnet-gan-comparison-1.png 1054w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 430px) 100vw, 430px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-443004\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">ResNet GAN with and without stabilization.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Will machines one day be as creative as humans? When we write a letter, have a conversation, or draw a picture, we exercise a uniquely human skill by creating complex artifacts that embody information. Current AI technology cannot yet match human ability in this area because it fails to have the same understanding of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","footnotes":""},"research-area":[13556],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-impact-theme":[],"msr-pillar":[],"class_list":["post-442986","msr-project","type-msr-project","status-publish","hentry","msr-research-area-artificial-intelligence","msr-locale-en_us","msr-archive-status-active"],"msr_project_start":"","related-publications":[310520,394979,438198,438210,443022,444702],"related-downloads":[],"related-videos":[],"related-groups":[],"related-events":[],"related-opportunities":[],"related-posts":[442788],"related-articles":[],"tab-content":[],"slides":[],"related-researchers":[{"type":"user_nicename","display_name":"Ryota Tomioka","user_id":33483,"people_section":"Section name 1","alias":"ryoto"},{"type":"user_nicename","display_name":"Katja Hofmann","user_id":32468,"people_section":"Section name 1","alias":"kahofman"}],"msr_research_lab":[199561],"msr_impact_theme":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-project\/442986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-project"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/msr-project"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-project\/442986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":556485,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-project\/442986\/revisions\/556485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"msr-research-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-area?post=442986"},{"taxonomy":"msr-locale","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-locale?post=442986"},{"taxonomy":"msr-impact-theme","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-impact-theme?post=442986"},{"taxonomy":"msr-pillar","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-pillar?post=442986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}