{"id":3396,"date":"2026-01-29T16:18:06","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T15:18:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/speinshart.ai\/pulse\/e\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T16:18:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T15:18:07","slug":"bayesian-inference-and-representations-in-the-age-of-foundation-models","status":"publish","type":"event","link":"https:\/\/speinshart.ai\/de\/pulse\/e\/bayesian-inference-and-representations-in-the-age-of-foundation-models","title":{"rendered":"Bayesian Inference and Representations in the Age of Foundation Models"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br>Key Topics of the retreat:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Sparsity and Structure in Neural Representations<ul><li>Explore how artificial symmetries and structured sparsity can be leveraged to design efficient and interpretable models.<\/li><\/ul>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Discuss practical implementations of sparsification in large-scale foundation models.<br><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Bayesian Neural Networks and Approximate Inference<ul><li>Reflect on methods such as Laplace approximations (FSP-Laplace, Sparse GNPs) and recent critiques of Bayesianism in modern AI (Dagstuhl Seminar 24461).<\/li><\/ul>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Evaluate robustness and uncertainty calibration in Bayesian pipelines, e.g., with Martingale Posteriors (Nagler &amp; R\u00fcgamer, 2025).<br><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>LoRA, Low-Rank Adaptation, and Scalable Posteriors<ul><li>Examine how low-rank and modular approximations (e.g., Gaussian SWA, Onal et al., 2024) can yield efficient, uncertainty-aware adaptation strategies in foundation models.<\/li><\/ul>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Initiate shared benchmarks for evaluating such approaches in realistic downstream settings (e.g., medical imaging, bioinformatics).<br><br><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Hybrid Modeling and Domain-Specific Priors<ul><li>Foster discussion on how inductive biases from expert knowledge can be integrated into deep probabilistic models.<\/li><\/ul>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Connect efforts across functional data analysis (R\u00fcgamer et al., 2024) and generative protein modeling (e.g., ProSpero by Kmicikiewicz et al., 2025).<br><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Sequential decision making<ul><li>Examine how deep Bayesian models can be effectively used for sequential decision-making tasks where well-calibrated belief updates are crucial, such as Bayesian optimization or active learning.<\/li><\/ul>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Combine sequential inference perspectives, such as sampling chains (Kobialka et al., 2025) and martingales (Nagler and R\u00fcgamer, 2025) with scientific sequential design problems (e.g., Cinquin et al., 2025).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><br>The retreat will consist of:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Keynotes by team members introducing key topics<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Group discussions for brainstorming on how to answer open research questions, potential research projects, and joint publication planning (focusing on inter-research group collaboration)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Elevator pitch session, where representatives of each group pitch their ideas in front of the plenary and receive feedback and advice from other retreat attendees\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>24h hackathon in small groups to quickly prototype ideas that came up in the discussions at the beginning of the retreat<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>A strategic research workshop on the final day to finalize common goals, publication plans, and funding strategies<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Please note: This is just an information regarding events taking place at SSC; public attendance is therefore not possible due to the character of the retreat.<\/strong><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Key Topics of the retreat: The retreat will consist of: Please note: This is just an information regarding events taking place at SSC; public attendance is therefore not possible due to the character of the retreat.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3380,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","categories":[3],"tags":[10,12,28,24],"class_list":["post-3396","event","type-event","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-retreats","tag-ai","tag-event","tag-retreat","tag-ssc"],"acf":{"date_start":"2026-03-09 08:00:00","date_end":"20260312","location":"Speinshart Abbey, Germany"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/speinshart.ai\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/event\/3396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/speinshart.ai\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/event"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/speinshart.ai\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/event"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/speinshart.ai\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/speinshart.ai\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/event\/3396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3397,"href":"https:\/\/speinshart.ai\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/event\/3396\/revisions\/3397"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/speinshart.ai\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/speinshart.ai\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/speinshart.ai\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/speinshart.ai\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}