We propose a causal interpretation of self-attention in the Transformer neural network architecture. We interpret self-attention as a mechanism that estimates a structural equation model for a given input sequence of symbols (tokens). The structural equation model can be interpreted, in turn, as a causal structure over the input symbols under the specific context of the input sequence. Importantly, this interpretation remains valid in the presence of latent confounders. Following this interpretation, we estimate conditional independence relations between input symbols by calculating partial correlations between their corresponding representations in the deepest attention layer. This enables learning the causal structure over an input sequence using existing constraint-based algorithms. In this sense, existing pre-trained Transformers can be utilized for zero-shot causal-discovery. We demonstrate this method by providing causal explanations for the outcomes of Transformers in two tasks: sentiment classification (NLP) and recommendation.
Open-loop stable limit cycles are foundational to the dynamics of legged robots. They impart a self-stabilizing character to the robot's gait, thus alleviating the need for compute-heavy feedback-based gait correction. This paper proposes a general approach to rapidly generate limit cycles with explicit stability constraints for a given dynamical system. In particular, we pose the problem of open-loop limit cycle stability as a single-stage constrained-optimization problem (COP), and use Direct Collocation to transcribe it into a nonlinear program (NLP) with closed-form expressions for constraints, objectives, and their gradients. The COP formulations of stability are developed based (1) on the spectral radius of a discrete return map, and (2) on the spectral radius of the system's monodromy matrix, where the spectral radius is bounded using different constraint-satisfaction formulations of the eigenvalue problem. We compare the performance and solution qualities of each approach, but specifically highlight the Schur decomposition of the monodromy matrix as a formulation which boasts wider applicability through weaker assumptions and attractive numerical convergence properties. Moreover, we present results from our experiments on a spring-loaded inverted pendulum model of a robot, where our method generated actuation trajectories for open-loop stable hopping in under 2 seconds (on the Intel Core i7-6700K), and produced energy-minimizing actuation trajectories even under tight stability constraints.
We study bias and discrimination in the context of Bumble, an online dating platform in India. Drawing on research in AI fairness and inclusion studies we analyze algorithmic bias and their propensity to reproduce bias. We conducted an experiment to identify and address the presence of bias in the matching algorithms Bumble pushes to its users in the form of profiles for potential dates in the real world. Dating apps like Bumble utilize algorithms that learn from user data to make recommendations. Even if the algorithm does not have intentions or consciousness, it is a system created and maintained by humans. We attribute moral agency of such systems to be compositely derived from algorithmic mediations, the design and utilization of these platforms. Developers, designers, and operators of dating platforms thus have a moral obligation to mitigate biases in the algorithms to create inclusive platforms that affirm diverse social identities.
Neural networks with self-attention (a.k.a. Transformers) like ViT and Swin have emerged as a better alternative to traditional convolutional neural networks (CNNs). However, our understanding of how the new architecture works is still limited. In this paper, we focus on the phenomenon that Transformers show higher robustness against corruptions than CNNs, while not being overconfident. This is contrary to the intuition that robustness increases with confidence. We resolve this contradiction by empirically investigating how the output of the penultimate layer moves in the representation space as the input data moves linearly within a small area. In particular, we show the following. (1) While CNNs exhibit fairly linear relationship between the input and output movements, Transformers show nonlinear relationship for some data. For those data, the output of Transformers moves in a curved trajectory as the input moves linearly. (2) When a data is located in a curved region, it is hard to move it out of the decision region since the output moves along a curved trajectory instead of a straight line to the decision boundary, resulting in high robustness of Transformers. (3) If a data is slightly modified to jump out of the curved region, the movements afterwards become linear and the output goes to the decision boundary directly. In other words, there does exist a decision boundary near the data, which is hard to find only because of the curved representation space. This explains the underconfident prediction of Transformers. Also, we examine mathematical properties of the attention operation that induce nonlinear response to linear perturbation. Finally, we share our additional findings, regarding what contributes to the curved representation space of Transformers, and how the curvedness evolves during training.
Pre-trained Language Models (PLMs) which are trained on large text corpus via self-supervised learning method, have yielded promising performance on various tasks in Natural Language Processing (NLP). However, though PLMs with huge parameters can effectively possess rich knowledge learned from massive training text and benefit downstream tasks at the fine-tuning stage, they still have some limitations such as poor reasoning ability due to the lack of external knowledge. Research has been dedicated to incorporating knowledge into PLMs to tackle these issues. In this paper, we present a comprehensive review of Knowledge-Enhanced Pre-trained Language Models (KE-PLMs) to provide a clear insight into this thriving field. We introduce appropriate taxonomies respectively for Natural Language Understanding (NLU) and Natural Language Generation (NLG) to highlight these two main tasks of NLP. For NLU, we divide the types of knowledge into four categories: linguistic knowledge, text knowledge, knowledge graph (KG), and rule knowledge. The KE-PLMs for NLG are categorized into KG-based and retrieval-based methods. Finally, we point out some promising future directions of KE-PLMs.
What is learned by sophisticated neural network agents such as AlphaZero? This question is of both scientific and practical interest. If the representations of strong neural networks bear no resemblance to human concepts, our ability to understand faithful explanations of their decisions will be restricted, ultimately limiting what we can achieve with neural network interpretability. In this work we provide evidence that human knowledge is acquired by the AlphaZero neural network as it trains on the game of chess. By probing for a broad range of human chess concepts we show when and where these concepts are represented in the AlphaZero network. We also provide a behavioural analysis focusing on opening play, including qualitative analysis from chess Grandmaster Vladimir Kramnik. Finally, we carry out a preliminary investigation looking at the low-level details of AlphaZero's representations, and make the resulting behavioural and representational analyses available online.
Human-in-the-loop aims to train an accurate prediction model with minimum cost by integrating human knowledge and experience. Humans can provide training data for machine learning applications and directly accomplish some tasks that are hard for computers in the pipeline with the help of machine-based approaches. In this paper, we survey existing works on human-in-the-loop from a data perspective and classify them into three categories with a progressive relationship: (1) the work of improving model performance from data processing, (2) the work of improving model performance through interventional model training, and (3) the design of the system independent human-in-the-loop. Using the above categorization, we summarize major approaches in the field, along with their technical strengths/ weaknesses, we have simple classification and discussion in natural language processing, computer vision, and others. Besides, we provide some open challenges and opportunities. This survey intends to provide a high-level summarization for human-in-the-loop and motivates interested readers to consider approaches for designing effective human-in-the-loop solutions.
We consider the problem of explaining the predictions of graph neural networks (GNNs), which otherwise are considered as black boxes. Existing methods invariably focus on explaining the importance of graph nodes or edges but ignore the substructures of graphs, which are more intuitive and human-intelligible. In this work, we propose a novel method, known as SubgraphX, to explain GNNs by identifying important subgraphs. Given a trained GNN model and an input graph, our SubgraphX explains its predictions by efficiently exploring different subgraphs with Monte Carlo tree search. To make the tree search more effective, we propose to use Shapley values as a measure of subgraph importance, which can also capture the interactions among different subgraphs. To expedite computations, we propose efficient approximation schemes to compute Shapley values for graph data. Our work represents the first attempt to explain GNNs via identifying subgraphs explicitly and directly. Experimental results show that our SubgraphX achieves significantly improved explanations, while keeping computations at a reasonable level.
Deep neural networks have revolutionized many machine learning tasks in power systems, ranging from pattern recognition to signal processing. The data in these tasks is typically represented in Euclidean domains. Nevertheless, there is an increasing number of applications in power systems, where data are collected from non-Euclidean domains and represented as the graph-structured data with high dimensional features and interdependency among nodes. The complexity of graph-structured data has brought significant challenges to the existing deep neural networks defined in Euclidean domains. Recently, many studies on extending deep neural networks for graph-structured data in power systems have emerged. In this paper, a comprehensive overview of graph neural networks (GNNs) in power systems is proposed. Specifically, several classical paradigms of GNNs structures (e.g., graph convolutional networks, graph recurrent neural networks, graph attention networks, graph generative networks, spatial-temporal graph convolutional networks, and hybrid forms of GNNs) are summarized, and key applications in power systems such as fault diagnosis, power prediction, power flow calculation, and data generation are reviewed in detail. Furthermore, main issues and some research trends about the applications of GNNs in power systems are discussed.
Deep neural networks (DNNs) are successful in many computer vision tasks. However, the most accurate DNNs require millions of parameters and operations, making them energy, computation and memory intensive. This impedes the deployment of large DNNs in low-power devices with limited compute resources. Recent research improves DNN models by reducing the memory requirement, energy consumption, and number of operations without significantly decreasing the accuracy. This paper surveys the progress of low-power deep learning and computer vision, specifically in regards to inference, and discusses the methods for compacting and accelerating DNN models. The techniques can be divided into four major categories: (1) parameter quantization and pruning, (2) compressed convolutional filters and matrix factorization, (3) network architecture search, and (4) knowledge distillation. We analyze the accuracy, advantages, disadvantages, and potential solutions to the problems with the techniques in each category. We also discuss new evaluation metrics as a guideline for future research.
We introduce a multi-task setup of identifying and classifying entities, relations, and coreference clusters in scientific articles. We create SciERC, a dataset that includes annotations for all three tasks and develop a unified framework called Scientific Information Extractor (SciIE) for with shared span representations. The multi-task setup reduces cascading errors between tasks and leverages cross-sentence relations through coreference links. Experiments show that our multi-task model outperforms previous models in scientific information extraction without using any domain-specific features. We further show that the framework supports construction of a scientific knowledge graph, which we use to analyze information in scientific literature.