Related papers: Escaping From Saddle Points --- Online Stochastic …
Non-convex optimization is a critical tool in advancing machine learning, especially for complex models like deep neural networks and support vector machines. Despite challenges such as multiple local minima and saddle points, non-convex…
In this paper, we focus on solving a class of constrained non-convex non-concave saddle point problems in a decentralized manner by a group of nodes in a network. Specifically, we assume that each node has access to a summand of a global…
We consider the problem of finding local minimizers in non-convex and non-smooth optimization. Under the assumption of strict saddle points, positive results have been derived for first-order methods. We present the first known results for…
Stochastic convex optimization is a basic and well studied primitive in machine learning. It is well known that convex and Lipschitz functions can be minimized efficiently using Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD). The Normalized Gradient…
We develop two compression based stochastic gradient algorithms to solve a class of non-smooth strongly convex-strongly concave saddle-point problems in a decentralized setting (without a central server). Our first algorithm is a…
Adversarial neural networks solve many important problems in data science, but are notoriously difficult to train. These difficulties come from the fact that optimal weights for adversarial nets correspond to saddle points, and not…
Local search heuristics for non-convex optimizations are popular in applied machine learning. However, in general it is hard to guarantee that such algorithms even converge to a local minimum, due to the existence of complicated saddle…
Stochastically controlled stochastic gradient (SCSG) methods have been proved to converge efficiently to first-order stationary points which, however, can be saddle points in nonconvex optimization. It has been observed that a stochastic…
In this paper, we address stochastic optimization problems involving a composition of a non-smooth outer function and a smooth inner function, a formulation frequently encountered in machine learning and operations research. To deal with…
This paper considers a class of distributed resource allocation problems where each agent privately holds a smooth, potentially non-convex local objective, subject to a globally coupled equality constraint. Built upon the existing method,…
Momentum Stochastic Gradient Descent (MSGD) algorithm has been widely applied to many nonconvex optimization problems in machine learning, e.g., training deep neural networks, variational Bayesian inference, and etc. Despite its empirical…
The paper considers the problem of network-based computation of global minima in smooth nonconvex optimization problems. It is known that distributed gradient-descent-type algorithms can achieve convergence to the set of global minima by…
Large-scale non-convex optimization problems are expensive to solve due to computational and memory costs. To reduce the costs, first-order (computationally efficient) and asynchronous-parallel (memory efficient) algorithms are necessary to…
We study the performance of stochastic first-order methods for finding saddle points of convex-concave functions. A notorious challenge faced by such methods is that the gradients can grow arbitrarily large during optimization, which may…
Multi-way data analysis has become an essential tool for capturing underlying structures in higher-order datasets stored in tensor $\mathcal{X} \in \mathbb{R} ^{I_1 \times \dots \times I_N} $. $CANDECOMP/PARAFAC$ (CP) decomposition has been…
A game theory inspired methodology is proposed for finding a function's saddle points. While explicit descent methods are known to have severe convergence issues, implicit methods are natural in an adversarial setting, as they take the…
We present a comprehensive theoretical analysis of first-order methods for escaping strict saddle points in smooth non-convex optimization. Our main contribution is a Perturbed Saddle-escape Descent (PSD) algorithm with fully explicit…
Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) gives an optimal convergence rate when minimizing convex stochastic objectives $f(x)$. However, in terms of making the gradients small, the original SGD does not give an optimal rate, even when $f(x)$ is…
Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) is a popular and efficient method with wide applications in training deep neural nets and other nonconvex models. While the behavior of SGD is well understood in the convex learning setting, the existing…
Nonconvex optimization underlies many modern machine learning and control tasks, where saddle points pose the dominant obstacle to reliable convergence in high-dimensional settings. Escaping these saddle points deterministically using…