What is probabilistic programming? (opens in new tab)

(pl-enthusiast.net)

95 pointstianyicui11y ago9 comments

9 comments

9 comments · 3 top-level

platz11y ago· 6 in thread

Just a wild guess, but I wonder if there could be a nice connection between probabilistic programming and logic languages like prolog, if only due to the fact that both Bayes graphs and unification both have this "run forwards and backwards" characteristic that is so unlike imperative programming

coolsunglasses11y ago

>run forwards and backwards

Half-serious: http://hackage.haskell.org/package/tardis-0.3.0.0/docs/Contr...

>probabilistic programming

https://hackage.haskell.org/package/probability

There are a number of articles about writing your own probability monad in Haskell. It's not hard.

dbaupp11y ago

> There are a number of articles about writing your own probability monad in Haskell. It's not hard.

Could you provide some links? In a quick search I can only find one article, and that's just about using that package, writing one.

eli_gottlieb11y ago

The Probability monad allows for computing exact probabilities, as stated, but that more-or-less misses the point of newer probabilistic programming approaches: avoid the exponential blow-up in complexity of inference due to marginalization by generalizing from evaluation to sampling rather than from evaluation to probability assignment.

jamii11y ago

There have been various attempts to build logic languages that deal with uncertain information (eg http://www.is.informatik.uni-duisburg.de/bib/pdf/ir/Fuhr_99a...).

scottdw11y ago

Also Church [http://projects.csail.mit.edu/church/wiki/Church], a Scheme derivative with probabilistic semantics.

jules11y ago

Yes, logic programming and probabilistic programming are closely related. See http://okmij.org/ftp/kakuritu/logic-programming.html

CmonDev11y ago

In a way any Python program is probabilistic.

sudowhodoido11y ago

OT of course, but I think that's what our outsourcers did: keep adding monkeys then the probability of completing a programming task slowly converges on 1...

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