# amortized inference

CEFR C2 · Noun

Source: https://englishreference.com/word/amortized-inference
Updated: 2026-09-28

## Definition

training a neural network once so that future predictions become much faster and cheaper to compute.

For teachers: an approximation technique where the computational cost of per-instance latent variable inference is shared by training an inference model (encoder) across all data points.

## Examples

- Using amortized inference allows the image model to reconstruct sketches in a split second.
- Variational autoencoders rely on amortized inference to bypass slow Markov chain sampling during generation.
- While amortized inference provides substantial speedups at test time, it introduces an amortization gap relative to exact per-sample gradient optimization.

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