Graph Embedding VAE: A Permutation Invariant Model of Graph Structure

Abstract: Generative models of graph structure have applications in biology and social sciences. The state of the art is GraphRNN, which decomposes the graph generation process into a series of sequential steps. While effective for modest sizes, it loses its permutation invariance for larger graphs. Instead, we present a permutation invariant latent-variable generative model relying on graph embeddings to encode structure. Using tools from the random graph literature, our model is highly scalable to large graphs with likelihood evaluation and generation in $O(|V | + |E|)$.