Related papers: Zeroth-order Asynchronous Doubly Stochastic Algori…

We consider the problem of asynchronous stochastic optimization, where an optimization algorithm makes updates based on stale stochastic gradients of the objective that are subject to an arbitrary (possibly adversarial) sequence of delays.…

This paper investigates the stochastic distributed nonconvex optimization problem of minimizing a global cost function formed by the summation of $n$ local cost functions. We solve such a problem by involving zeroth-order (ZO) information…

In this study, we consider an optimization problem with uncertainty dependent on decision variables, which has recently attracted attention due to its importance in machine learning and pricing applications. In this problem, the gradient of…

Composition optimization has drawn a lot of attention in a wide variety of machine learning domains from risk management to reinforcement learning. Existing methods solving the composition optimization problem often work in a sequential and…

In this paper, we consider non-smooth stochastic convex optimization with two function evaluations per round under infinite noise variance. In the classical setting when noise has finite variance, an optimal algorithm, built upon the…

We consider derivative-free algorithms for stochastic and non-stochastic convex optimization problems that use only function values rather than gradients. Focusing on non-asymptotic bounds on convergence rates, we show that if pairs of…

Zeroth-order optimization aims to minimize an objective function using only function evaluations, and is therefore fundamental in black-box optimization, hyperparameter tuning, bandit learning, and adversarial machine learning. While…

In this paper we analyze a zeroth-order proximal stochastic gradient method suitable for the minimization of weakly convex stochastic optimization problems. We consider nonsmooth and nonlinear stochastic composite problems, for which…

Mini-batch optimization has proven to be a powerful paradigm for large-scale learning. However, the state of the art parallel mini-batch algorithms assume synchronous operation or cyclic update orders. When worker nodes are heterogeneous…

Optimizing large-scale nonconvex problems, common in deep learning, demands balancing rapid convergence with computational efficiency. First-order (FO) optimizers, which serve as today's baselines, provide fast convergence and good…

We study a class of zeroth-order distributed optimization problems, where each agent can control a partial vector and observe a local cost that depends on the joint vector of all agents, and the agents can communicate with each other with…

Alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) is a popular optimization tool for the composite and constrained problems in machine learning. However, in many machine learning problems such as black-box attacks and bandit feedback, ADMM…

Asynchronous algorithms have attracted much attention recently due to the crucial demands on solving large-scale optimization problems. However, the accelerated versions of asynchronous algorithms are rarely studied. In this paper, we…

In this paper, we propose and analyze zeroth-order stochastic approximation algorithms for nonconvex and convex optimization, with a focus on addressing constrained optimization, high-dimensional setting and saddle-point avoiding. To handle…

Two types of zeroth-order stochastic algorithms have recently been designed for nonconvex optimization respectively based on the first-order techniques SVRG and SARAH/SPIDER. This paper addresses several important issues that are still open…

We consider the problem of minimizing a high-dimensional objective function, which may include a regularization term, using (possibly noisy) evaluations of the function. Such optimization is also called derivative-free, zeroth-order, or…

Zeroth-order (ZO) optimization with ordinal feedback has emerged as a fundamental problem in modern machine learning systems, particularly in human-in-the-loop settings such as reinforcement learning from human feedback, preference…

We propose an enhanced zeroth-order stochastic Frank-Wolfe framework to address constrained finite-sum optimization problems, a structure prevalent in large-scale machine-learning applications. Our method introduces a novel double variance…

Asynchronous distributed algorithms are a popular way to reduce synchronization costs in large-scale optimization, and in particular for neural network training. However, for nonsmooth and nonconvex objectives, few convergence guarantees…

Interest in stochastic zeroth-order (SZO) methods has recently been revived in black-box optimization scenarios such as adversarial black-box attacks to deep neural networks. SZO methods only require the ability to evaluate the objective…