Bayesian neural network (BNN) priors are defined in parameter space, making it hard to encode prior knowledge expressed in function space. We formulate a prior that incorporates functional constraints about what the output can or cannot be in regions of the input space. Output-Constrained BNNs (OC-BNN) represent an interpretable approach of enforcing a range of constraints, fully consistent with the Bayesian framework and amenable to black-box inference. We demonstrate how OC-BNNs improve model robustness and prevent the prediction of infeasible outputs in two real-world applications of healthcare and robotics.
@cite_9 specify a Gaussian function prior with the goal of preventing overconfident BNN predictions out-of-distribution. In contrast, we use "positive constraints" to guide the function where it should be. Also related are functional BNNs by @cite_0 , where variational inference is performed in function-space using a stochastic process model. Their view is more general---and accordingly, more complex to optimize---while we focus on constraints in specific regions of the input-output space.
@cite_0 @cite_9
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Variational Bayesian neural networks (BNNs) perform variational inference over weights, but it is difficult to specify meaningful priors and approximate posteriors in a high-dimensional weight space. We introduce functional variational Bayesian neural networks (fBNNs), which maximize an Evidence Lower BOund (ELBO) defined directly on stochastic processes, i.e. distributions over functions. We prove that the KL divergence between stochastic processes equals the supremum of marginal KL divergences over all finite sets of inputs. Based on this, we introduce a practical training objective which approximates the functional ELBO using finite measurement sets and the spectral Stein gradient estimator. With fBNNs, we can specify priors entailing rich structures, including Gaussian processes and implicit stochastic processes. Empirically, we find fBNNs extrapolate well using various structured priors, provide reliable uncertainty estimates, and scale to large datasets. Obtaining reliable uncertainty estimates of neural network predictions is a long standing challenge. Bayesian neural networks have been proposed as a solution, but it remains open how to specify the prior. In particular, the common practice of a standard normal prior in weight space imposes only weak regularities, causing the function posterior to possibly generalize in unforeseen ways on out-of-distribution inputs. We propose noise contrastive priors (NCPs). The key idea is to train the model to output high uncertainty for data points outside of the training distribution. NCPs do so using an input prior, which adds noise to the inputs of the current mini batch, and an output prior, which is a wide distribution given these inputs. NCPs are compatible with any model that represents predictive uncertainty, are easy to scale, and yield reliable uncertainty estimates throughout training. Empirically, we show that NCPs offer clear improvements as an addition to existing baselines. We demonstrate the scalability on the flight delays data set, where we significantly improve upon previously published results.