  Probabilistic generative models provide a flexible and systematic framework
for learning the underlying geometry of data. However, model selection in this
setting is challenging, particularly when selecting for ill-defined qualities
such as disentanglement or interpretability. In this work, we address this gap
by introducing a method for ranking generative models based on the training
dynamics exhibited during learning. Inspired by recent theoretical
characterizations of disentanglement, our method does not require supervision
of the underlying latent factors. We evaluate our approach by demonstrating the
need for disentanglement metrics which do not require labels\textemdash the
underlying generative factors. We additionally demonstrate that our approach
correlates with baseline supervised methods for evaluating disentanglement.
Finally, we show that our method can be used as an unsupervised indicator for
downstream performance on reinforcement learning and fairness-classification
problems.
