From Data to Program: Fast & Direct Generative Program Inference from Empirical Data
Simon Klüttermann, Xueying Ding, Leman Akoglu
Abstract
Estimating probability densities from a finite set of samples typically requires dataset-specific model fitting. We introduce PRODiGI, a pretrained data-to-program model that infers an explicit, executable generative program in a single forward pass. Pretrained on synthetic datasets paired with their ground-truth programs, PRODiGI accommodates diverse generative families and data dimensionalities through template prediction and non-autoregressive program parameter decoding. Its inferred programs support direct sampling, density and score evaluation, and inspection independently of the pretrained model. We further introduce program-space fine-tuning, which refines differentiable program parameters by matching generated and empirical samples while keeping model parameters intact. Experiments show that PRODiGI achieves lower average density and score MAE than existing pretrained models, while offering multi-fold speedups over its closest competitors. Program-space fine-tuning further reduces generation MMD by 84%. By turning empirical data into explicit, reusable programs, PRODiGI introduces a new direction for fast, interpretable tabular generative modeling.