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Daniel Ward

4 accepted papers

2025

SoftCVI: Contrastive variational inference with self-generated soft labels

ICLR 2025spotlight

Estimating a distribution given access to its unnormalized density is pivotal in Bayesian inference, where the posterior is generally known only up to an unknown normalizing constant. Variational inference and Markov chain Monte Carlo methods are the predominant tools for this task; however, both ar…

Cited by 0SourcePDFScholar
2025

The Hyperfitting Phenomenon: Sharpening and Stabilizing LLMs for Open-Ended Text Generation

ICLR 2025poster

This paper introduces the counter-intuitive generalization results of overfitting pre-trained large language models (LLMs) on very small datasets. In the setting of open-ended text generation, it is well-documented that LLMs tend to generate repetitive and dull sequences, a phenomenon that is especi…

Cited by 1SourcePDFScholar
2022

Robust Neural Posterior Estimation and Statistical Model Criticism

NeurIPS 2022accept

Computer simulations have proven a valuable tool for understanding complex phenomena across the sciences. However, the utility of simulators for modelling and forecasting purposes is often restricted by low data quality, as well as practical limits to model fidelity. In order to circumvent these dif…

Cited by 44SourcePDFScholar
2020

Learning Arbitrary-Goal Fabric Folding with One Hour of Real Robot Experience

CoRL 2020

Manipulating deformable objects, such as fabric, is a long standing problem in robotics, with state estimation and control posing a significant challenge for traditional methods. In this paper, we show that it is possible to learn fabric folding skills in only an hour of self-supervised real robot e

Cited by 0SourcePDFScholar