HN Gopher Feed (2017-11-06) - page 1 of 10 ___________________________________________________________________
Uber Open Sources Pyro, a Deep Probabilistic Programming Language
134 points by jonbaer
https://eng.uber.com/pyro/___________________________________________________________________
thecolorblue - 4 hours ago
Is it a language or a python package? The example I am looking at
looks like python to me.
f00_ - 2 hours ago
I think classifying it as a framework wouldn't be too far off,
gives you statistical distributions to work with as primitives (x
is drawn from a Normal distribution instead of just being
assigned to 5 for example).And then it uses PyTorch to perform
Variational Inference(?)
vvkmnn - 2 hours ago
Statistical primitives backed by Pytorch (Pyro) and Tensorflow
(Edward) is a great analogy. Thanks!
bpicolo - 4 hours ago
Why is it being labelled a "Language" instead of a python library?
cwyers - 3 hours ago
Maybe the idea is that it's a DSL?
kafkaesq - 3 hours ago
From skimming the documentation it sounds like, rather than being
just another library of utility functions, there's a formal
language of sorts under the hood that the programming library
"compiles to":Think of this as the compiler for a PPL: it allows
us to divide labor between the modeler and the inference
expert.Or something like that. Someone from the team could no
doubt produce a better explanation.
joshumax - 3 hours ago
It's especially strange why they're calling it a language on
their blog when the GitHub readme specifically states that "Pyro
is a flexible, scalable deep probabilistic programming
library"[1]1: https://github.com/uber/pyro
AYBABTME - 39 minutes ago
This bit [1] seems to be hacking around with the Python runtime
to provide "DSL" like semantics. I wouldn't call this a PL but a
DSL, sure. (as an aside, reading this "Poutine" stuff everywhere
made me super hungry)[1]:
https://github.com/uber/pyro/tree/dev/pyro/poutine
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sosodaft - 3 hours ago
I was going to suggest that the author was in marketing and
didn't know the difference, but the article seems too in-depth
for that. Maybe it's hybrid and devs wrote the more technical
sections.
stablemap - 3 hours ago
Some discussion from a few days
ago:https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15619634
bitL - 3 hours ago
Very interesting! How does this relate to Reinforcement Learning
and Probabilistic Graphical Models? A major weakness of current
crop of Deep Learning is the decision-making modeling; I assume
that's where Pyro is intended to be used, right?
wodenokoto - 46 minutes ago
If one wants to get I to ppl, what is a good place to start?
kirillseva - 3 hours ago
I prefer the syntax of STAN or edwardlib. Curious why Uber would
choose to work on a PPL library in-house as opposed to contributing
to existing mature OSS packages
f00_ - 2 hours ago
They acquired Geometric Intelligence a year(?) ago, and renamed
them Uber AI. I think there is demand for Edward/PyMC3 backed by
PyTorch instead of Tensorflow/Theano. Theano is being depreciated
next year, which backs PyMC3.https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-
publications/news/2016/decemb...Seems okay, they are taking cues
from Edward/WebPPL, and have some pretty good researchers, headed
Gary Marcus.
kirillseva - 2 hours ago
Is he still around?https://www.recode.net/2017/3/8/14863560
/uber-ai-gary-marcus...
krylon - 1 hours ago
There used to be a Python library called Pyro, which stood for
Python Remote Objects. As the name implies, it as a library for
doing RPC/RMI. I remember playing with it over a weekend ~12 years
ago.Oh, look, it is still around:
https://pypi.python.org/pypi/Pyro/3.16Admittedly, the last update
was five years ago, but still.
jgibson - 1 hours ago
Pyro (the remote object version) is still around as Pyro4 (and in
active development, found here https://pythonhosted.org/Pyro4/).
We found it great for gradually transitioning from Py2 to Py3
cglace - 1 hours ago
Interesting. Can you provide some details about how it helped
you transition?
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