5 ms·

Probabilistic Programming for Advancing Machine Learning

76 points by z3phyr 12y ago

wodenokoto 12y ago
is this a research program, an online course or a startup or what is it?
- z3phyr 12y ago
  Its a wiki on a DARPA project which documents the methodology of probabilistic programming and its applications in ML.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- probinso 12y ago
  This is a fairly large project, spanning 4 years, so there are quite a bit of moving parts. There are a group of teams developing new programming languages, and are being funded to do so by darpa. Some of the teams are leveraging their languages, and networking/collaboration opportunities provided them through their participation, to kick off start-ups. Because success of a language is largely dependent on acceptance by the community, there are also summer schools sessions that are hosted to increase publicity and provide strong feedback to the language development teams on usability. Those who have interesting and well defined problems in the space of machine learning should consider attending the summer school, or submitting a 'challenge problem' to the Galois team for the language developers to solve.
jjwiseman 12y ago
This set of slides seems to be the best overview of what this is and what the goals are: http://ppaml.galois.com/wiki/attachment/wiki/Presentations/PPAMLKickoffOverviewSlides.pdf?format=raw http://ppaml.galois.com/wiki/attachment/wiki/Presentations/P... (It seems to be a big DARPA-organized effort to create next-generation tools that enable the creation of probabilistic machine learning systems that are significantly more capable and can handle more complex models than current tools allow.)
hatmatrix 12y ago
"Probabilistic Programming is a new programming paradigm for managing uncertain information." I thought probabilistic programming has been around for decades.
- mlvljr 12y ago
  It's new for those who is less than "decades" old themselves (i.e. in their teens) ;)
- troels 12y ago
  I wonder - How else would you manage uncertain information?
  - sieisteinmodel 12y ago
    e.g. fuzzy logic.
- kylebrown 12y ago
  Have any of the languages on this list been around for decades? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probabilistic_programming_language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probabilistic_programming_langu...
jeffreyrogers 12y ago
I've seen a few references to probabilistic programming, but I'm not familiar with it. Can someone who is briefly describe what its advantages are and where it's likely to provide a better solution than more traditional techniques?
- rasz_pl 12y ago
  http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/208585/fose-icse2014.pdf http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/208585/fose-icse2014.pdf afaik Kinect skeletal pose reconstruction is modeled in PGMs
- logicalman 12y ago
  Read this: http://ppaml.galois.com/wiki/attachment/wiki/SummerSchools/2014/LectureMaterials/BasicsOfProbabilisticModelingAndInference.pdf http://ppaml.galois.com/wiki/attachment/wiki/SummerSchools/2...

76 points by z3phyr 12y ago

wodenokoto 12y ago

is this a research program, an online course or a startup or what is it?

z3phyr 12y ago
Its a wiki on a DARPA project which documents the methodology of probabilistic programming and its applications in ML.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
probinso 12y ago
This is a fairly large project, spanning 4 years, so there are quite a bit of moving parts. There are a group of teams developing new programming languages, and are being funded to do so by darpa. Some of the teams are leveraging their languages, and networking/collaboration opportunities provided them through their participation, to kick off start-ups. Because success of a language is largely dependent on acceptance by the community, there are also summer schools sessions that are hosted to increase publicity and provide strong feedback to the language development teams on usability. Those who have interesting and well defined problems in the space of machine learning should consider attending the summer school, or submitting a 'challenge problem' to the Galois team for the language developers to solve.

jjwiseman 12y ago

This set of slides seems to be the best overview of what this is and what the goals are: http://ppaml.galois.com/wiki/attachment/wiki/Presentations/PPAMLKickoffOverviewSlides.pdf?format=raw http://ppaml.galois.com/wiki/attachment/wiki/Presentations/P... (It seems to be a big DARPA-organized effort to create next-generation tools that enable the creation of probabilistic machine learning systems that are significantly more capable and can handle more complex models than current tools allow.)

hatmatrix 12y ago

"Probabilistic Programming is a new programming paradigm for managing uncertain information." I thought probabilistic programming has been around for decades.

mlvljr 12y ago
It's new for those who is less than "decades" old themselves (i.e. in their teens) ;)
troels 12y ago
I wonder - How else would you manage uncertain information?
- sieisteinmodel 12y ago
  e.g. fuzzy logic.
kylebrown 12y ago
Have any of the languages on this list been around for decades? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probabilistic_programming_language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probabilistic_programming_langu...

jeffreyrogers 12y ago

I've seen a few references to probabilistic programming, but I'm not familiar with it. Can someone who is briefly describe what its advantages are and where it's likely to provide a better solution than more traditional techniques?

rasz_pl 12y ago
http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/208585/fose-icse2014.pdf http://research.microsoft.com/pubs/208585/fose-icse2014.pdf afaik Kinect skeletal pose reconstruction is modeled in PGMs
logicalman 12y ago
Read this: http://ppaml.galois.com/wiki/attachment/wiki/SummerSchools/2014/LectureMaterials/BasicsOfProbabilisticModelingAndInference.pdf http://ppaml.galois.com/wiki/attachment/wiki/SummerSchools/2...