Committed information rate variational autoencoders

One or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media storing instructions that when executed by one or more computers cause the one or more computers to implement a variational autoencoder neural network system, the variational autoencoder neural network system comprising:

• a subsystem configured to determine respective values of a set of latent variables for each of a plurality of time steps;
• and
• a decoder neural network configured to receive the respective values of the set of latent variables for the time steps and to generate an output data item representing the values of the set of latent variables, wherein the output data item comprises a sequence of output data item values that each correspond to a respective one of the plurality of time steps, and wherein the decoder neural network is an autoregressive neural network that is configured to generate each output data item value in the sequence conditional upon (i) any previously generated output data item values in the sequence and (ii) only the values of the set of latent variables for time steps that correspond to output data item values that have yet to be generated.

A method performed by one or more computers, the method comprising:

• determining respective values of a set of latent variables for each of a plurality of time steps;
• and
• processing the respective values of the set of latent variables for each of the plurality of time steps using a decoder neural network configured to receive the respective values of the set of latent variables for the time steps and to generate an output data item representing the values of the set of latent variables, wherein the output data item comprises a sequence of output data item values that each correspond to a respective one of the plurality of time steps, and wherein the decoder neural network is an autoregressive neural network that is configured to generate each output data item value in the sequence conditional upon (i) any previously generated output data item values in the sequence and (ii) only the values of the set of latent variables for time steps that correspond to output data item values that have yet to be generated.