Complexity of Inference in Bayesian Networks
Developing efficient (i.e. polynomial time) algorithms with guaranteed performance is a central goal in computer science (perhaps the central goal). In machine learning, inference algorithms meeting these requirements are much rarer than we would like: often, an algorithm is either efficient but doesn’t perform optimally or vice versa. A number of results from the 1990’s demonstrate the challenges of, but also the potential for, efficient Bayesian inference. These results were carried out in the context of Bayesian networks.