학술논문

Variational Bayes Made Easy
Document Type
Working Paper
Source
Presented at the 5th Symposium on Advances in Approximate Bayesian Inference (AABI 2023)
Subject
Computer Science - Machine Learning
Computer Science - Artificial Intelligence
Statistics - Machine Learning
Language
Abstract
Variational Bayes is a popular method for approximate inference but its derivation can be cumbersome. To simplify the process, we give a 3-step recipe to identify the posterior form by explicitly looking for linearity with respect to expectations of well-known distributions. We can then directly write the update by simply ``reading-off'' the terms in front of those expectations. The recipe makes the derivation easier, faster, shorter, and more general.