Mode Collapse of Mean-Field Variational Inference

arXiv:2510.17063 · stat.ML, cs.LG · Submitted 2025-10-20 · Read on arXiv

stat.ML, cs.LG

Submitted: 2025-10-20

Updated: 2026-10-12

Terminology

• Mode Collapse — 4× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes

Sources

• Convergence of coordinate ascent variational inference for log-concave measures via optimal transport
• When majority rules, minority loses: bias amplification of gradient descent
• Beyond ELBOs: A Large-Scale Evaluation of Variational Methods for Sampling
• Rotated Mean-Field Variational Inference and Iterative Gaussianization
• Independent projections of diffusions: Gradient flows for variational inference and optimal mean field approximations
• Stability of Mean-Field Variational Inference
• A theoretical perspective on mode collapse in variational inference
• Extending Mean-Field Variational Inference via Entropic Regularization: Theory and Computation

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