Implementing and Automating Fixed-Form Variational Posterior Approximation through Stochastic Linear Regression

Abstract

We recently proposed a general algorithm for approximating nonstandard Bayesian posterior distributions by minimization of their Kullback-Leibler divergence with respect to a more convenient approximating distribution. In this note we offer details on how to efficiently implement this algorithm in practice. We also suggest default choices for the form of the posterior approximation, the number of iterations, the step size, and other user choices. By using these defaults it becomes possible to construct good posterior approximations for hierarchical models completely automatically.