Online and Interactive Bayesian Inference Debugging

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Nussbaumer, Nathanael, Böck, Markus, Cito, Jürgen
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Nussbaumer, Nathanael
Böck, Markus
Cito, Jürgen
author_facet Nussbaumer, Nathanael
Böck, Markus
Cito, Jürgen
contents Probabilistic programming is a rapidly developing programming paradigm which enables the formulation of Bayesian models as programs and the automation of posterior inference. It facilitates the development of models and conducting Bayesian inference, which makes these techniques available to practitioners from multiple fields. Nevertheless, probabilistic programming is notoriously difficult as identifying and repairing issues with inference requires a lot of time and deep knowledge. Through this work, we introduce a novel approach to debugging Bayesian inference that reduces time and required knowledge significantly. We discuss several requirements a Bayesian inference debugging framework has to fulfill, and propose a new tool that meets these key requirements directly within the development environment. We evaluate our results in a study with 18 experienced participants and show that our approach to online and interactive debugging of Bayesian inference significantly reduces time and difficulty on inference debugging tasks.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_26579
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Online and Interactive Bayesian Inference Debugging
Nussbaumer, Nathanael
Böck, Markus
Cito, Jürgen
Software Engineering
Probabilistic programming is a rapidly developing programming paradigm which enables the formulation of Bayesian models as programs and the automation of posterior inference. It facilitates the development of models and conducting Bayesian inference, which makes these techniques available to practitioners from multiple fields. Nevertheless, probabilistic programming is notoriously difficult as identifying and repairing issues with inference requires a lot of time and deep knowledge. Through this work, we introduce a novel approach to debugging Bayesian inference that reduces time and required knowledge significantly. We discuss several requirements a Bayesian inference debugging framework has to fulfill, and propose a new tool that meets these key requirements directly within the development environment. We evaluate our results in a study with 18 experienced participants and show that our approach to online and interactive debugging of Bayesian inference significantly reduces time and difficulty on inference debugging tasks.
title Online and Interactive Bayesian Inference Debugging
topic Software Engineering
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.26579