OptimizationΒΆ

Optimization provides an alternative approach to marginal inference.

In this section we refer to the program for which we would like to obtain the marginal distribution as the target program.

If we take a target program and add a guide distribution to each random choice, then we can define the guide program as the program you get when you sample from the guide distribution at each sample statement and ignore all factor statements.

If we endow this guide program with adjustable parameters, then we can optimize those parameters so as to minimize the distance between the joint distribution of the choices in the guide program and those in the target. For example:

Optimize({
  steps: 10000,
  model: function() {
    var x = sample(Gaussian({ mu: 0, sigma: 1 }), {
      guide: function() {
        return Gaussian({ mu: param(), sigma: 1 });
      }});
    factor(-(x-2)*(x-2))
    return x;
  }});

This general approach includes a number of well-known algorithms as special cases.

It is supported in WebPPL by a method for performing optimization, primitives for specifying parameters, and the ability to specify guides.