A Deep Generative Model for Interactive Data Annotation through Direct Manipulation in Latent Space

Abstract: The impact of ML in many fields of application is constrained by lack of annotated data. Among existing tools for ML-assisted data annotation, one little explored tool type relies on an analogy between the coordinates of a graphical user interface and the latent space of a neural network for interaction through direct manipulation. In the present work, we 1) expand the paradigm by proposing two new analogies: time and force as reflecting iterations and gradients of network training; 2) propose a network model for learning a compact graphical representation of the data that takes into account both its internal structure and user provided annotations; and 3) investigate the impact of model hyperparameters on the learned graphical representations of the data, identifying candidate model variants for a future user study.