In the realm of probabilistic programming, the challenge often faced by developers is efficiently composing and performing inference on complex probabilistic programs. A tool known as Coix (COmbinators In jaX) has been introduced to help. As a flexible and backend-agnostic solution, it offers an all-encompassing set of program transformations, known as inference combinators. These combinators…
The integration of robotics into automatic assembly procedures is highly valuable but has met with issues adapting to high-mix, low-volume manufacturing. Robotic learning which enables robots to acquire assembly skills through demonstrations, not scripted processes, offers a potential resolution to this problem. However, teaching robots to perform assembly tasks from raw sensor data presents a…
Researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are seeking to leverage deep learning technology to provide a more detailed and accurate understanding of Earth's planetary boundary layer (PBL). The definition and structure of the PBL are pivotal to improving weather forecasting, climate projections, and issues such as drought conditions.
The PBL is the lowest part of…
Language models (LMs) such as BERT or GPT-2 are faced with challenges in self-supervised learning due to a phenomenon referred to as representation degeneration. These models work by training neural networks using token sequences to generate contextual representations, with a language modeling head, often a linear layer with variable parameters, producing next-token distributions of probability.…
Vector databases, which handle multidimensional data points, have gained significant attention due to their utility in machine learning, image processing, and similarity search applications. This article delves into a comparison of 14 vector databases, assessing their advantages, disadvantages, and unique features.
Faiss, a creation of Facebook AI, excels with efficient, high-performance similarity searching and dense vector…
MIT had a remarkable year in 2023, achieving progress on several fronts from scientific discoveries to spearheading community initiatives. Among the notable events were the inauguration of MIT President Sally Kornbluth, the Commencement address by Mark Rober, and Professor Moungi Bawendi receiving the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research on quantum dots.
The institution made…
Due to the need for long-sequence support in large language models (LLMs), a solution to the problematic key-value (KV) cache bottleneck needs addressing. LLMs like GPT-4, Gemini, and LWM are becoming increasingly prominent in apps such as chatbots and financial analysis, but the substantial memory footprint of the KV cache and their auto-regressive nature make…