CS 5788: Introduction to Generative Models

An in-depth introduction to deep generative models. This course covers the mathematical foundations of generative models and their implementation as deep neural networks. Topics include diffusion models, variational autoencoders, autoregressive models, generative adversarial networks, and network architectures for generation. These topics will be discussed in the context of applications in computer vision and natural language processing.

Lectures: Lectures will take place Tuesday and Thursday, 10:10AM - 11:25AM in Bloomberg Center 131. Attendance will not be required, but it is highly encouraged. There are multiple ways to participate:

Prerequisites:

Google Colab: The problem sets will be completed using Jupyter notebooks, generally using Google Colab. While this service is free, it is important to note that it comes with GPU usage limits. You may only use the GPUs on a given Google account for a certain number of hours per day. These limits are due to the fact that GPUs are very expensive. Since none of the problem sets require training large models, you may never encounter these limits. However, we have provided a few suggestions for avoiding them:

1. Reduce your GPU usage by initially debugging your code on the CPU. For example, after confirming that you can successfully complete a single training iteration without error on the CPU, you can switch to the GPU. You can then switch back to the CPU if you need to debug further errors.
2. Consider using Google Colab Pro. It may be available for free for students (see here) pending availability. For students who would like to use this (optional) service, but are unable to afford it, we may be able to obtain funding for you. Please send the course staff a private message by email if you would like to learn more about this option.

Q&A: This course has a Q&A forum on Ed Discussion, where you can ask public questions. If you cannot make your post public (e.g., due to revealing problem set solutions), please mark your post private, or come to office hours. Please note, however, that the course staff cannot provide help debugging code, and there is no guarantee that they'll be able to answer all questions — especially last-minute questions about the homework. We also greatly appreciate it when you respond to questions from other students! If you have an important question that you would prefer to discuss over email, you may email the course staff (cs5788-staff-2026sp-L@cornell.edu), or you can contact the instructor by email directly.

Homework: There will be homework 4 homework assignments. All programming assignments are to be completed in Python, using the starter code that we provide. Assignments will always be due at midnight (11:59pm) on the due date. Written problems will usually be submitted to Gradescope. You may be asked to annotate your PDF (e.g. by selecting your solution to each problem).

Midterm exam: There will be a midterm exam (date TBD).

Textbook: There are no required textbooks to purchase. However, much of the class will closely follow:

The following textbooks may be useful as references and are available for free online:

Acknowledgements: This course uses material from MIT's 6.869: Advances in Computer Vision which is associated with the optional textbook Foundations of Computer Vision. It also includes lecture slides from other researchers, including Svetlana Lazebnik, Alexei Efros, David Fouhey, and Noah Snavely (please see acknowledgments in the lecture slides).

Late policy: You'll have 120 late hours (enough hours for 5 late days) to use over the course of the semester. Each time you use a late hour, you may submit a homework assignment one hour late without penalty. You may distribute these any way you'd like. For example, you can use all of your days at once to turn in one assignment 5 days late, or you can turn each assignment in a few hours late. You do not need to notify us when you use a late hour; we'll deduct it automatically. If you run out of late hours and still submit late, your assignment will be penalized at a rate of 1% per hour. If you edit your assignment after the deadline, this will count as a late submission, and we'll use the revision time to compute late hours (rounded up per assignment).

We will not provide additional late time, except under exceptional circumstances, and for these cases we'll require documentation (such as a doctor's note). Please note that the late hours are provided to help you deal with minor setbacks, such as routine illness or injury, paper deadlines, interviews, and computer (or Google Colab) problems; these do not generally qualify for an additional extension.

Please note that, due to the number of late days available, there will be a long (2+ week) lag between the time of submission and the time that grades are released. We'll need to wait for the late submissions to arrive before we can complete the grading.

Regrade requests: If you think that there was a grading error, you'll have 9 days to submit a regrade request, using Gradescope. This will be a strict deadline, even for significant mistakes such as missing grades, so please look carefully over your graded assignments.

AI/LLM tools: The use of language models will be set on a per-assignment basis. For most assignments, we will not permit their use at all. For others, we will allow them to be used as a way of learning how to use programming languages and libraries (e.g., as a substitute for reading documentation). There may also be more open-ended assignments where we explicitly permit their full use. Please ask the course staff if additional questions arise on what is or is not permitted.

Grading:

Academic integrity: While you are encouraged to discuss homework assignments with other students, your programming work must be completed individually. All students should abide by the Cornell University Code of Academic Integrity, and all writing submitted should be one’s own writing. While discussing course concepts with other students is highly encouraged, plagiarism will result in zero credit and/or a referral to the Office of Student & Academic Affairs.

Students with disabilities: Your access in this course is important to us. Please give us your Student Disability Services (SDS) accommodation letter early in the semester so that we have adequate time to arrange your approved academic accommodations. If you need immediate accommodations for equal access, please speak with us after class or send an email message to us and/or SDS at sds_cu@cornell.edu. If the need arises for additional accommodations during the semester, please contact SDS. You may also feel free to speak with the Student & Academic Affairs team at Cornell Tech who will connect you with the university SDS office. If you have, or think you may have a disability, please contact Student Disability Services for a confidential discussion. You must request your SDS accommodation letter no later than 3 weeks prior to needing it.

Support: There are services and resources at Cornell designed specifically to bolster student mental health and well-being. This link provides a list of resources for Cornell Tech students. You can additionally also contact studentwellness@tech.cornell.edu with concerns.