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One of the most important parts of Artificial Neural Networks is minimizing the loss functions which tells us how good or bad our model is. To minimize these losses we need to tune the weights and biases. Also to calculate the minimum value…
Stochastic neurons and hard non-linearities can be useful for a number of reasons in deep learning models, but in many cases they pose a challenging problem: how to estimate the gradient of a loss function with respect to the input of such…
We propose a new way of training neural networks, with the goal of reducing training cost. Our method uses approximate predicted gradients instead of the full gradients that require an expensive backward pass. We derive a…
We derive an unbiased estimator for expectations over discrete random variables based on sampling without replacement, which reduces variance as it avoids duplicate samples. We show that our estimator can be derived as the…
Reinforcement learning is about learning agent models that make the best sequential decisions in unknown environments. In an unknown environment, the agent needs to explore the environment while exploiting the collected information, which…
This paper deals with the black-box optimization problem. In this setup, we do not have access to the gradient of the objective function, therefore, we need to estimate it somehow. We propose a new type of approximation JAGUAR, that…
With increasing scale in model and dataset size, the training of deep neural networks becomes a massive computational burden. One approach to speed up the training process is Selective Backprop. For this approach, we perform a forward pass…
Event-based vision encodes dynamic scenes as asynchronous spatio-temporal spikes called events. To leverage conventional image processing pipelines, events are typically binned into frames. However, binning functions are discontinuous,…
Policy gradient methods are powerful reinforcement learning algorithms and have been demonstrated to solve many complex tasks. However, these methods are also data-inefficient, afflicted with high variance gradient estimates, and frequently…
A number of optimization approaches have been proposed for optimizing nonconvex objectives (e.g. deep learning models), such as batch gradient descent, stochastic gradient descent and stochastic variance reduced gradient descent. Theory…
This paper develops the first policy gradient method with global optimality guarantee and complexity analysis for robust reinforcement learning under model mismatch. Robust reinforcement learning is to learn a policy robust to model…
Standard approaches to stochastic gradient estimation, with only noisy black-box function evaluations, use the finite-difference method or its variants. While natural, it is open to our knowledge whether their statistical accuracy is the…
Predictions made by deep learning models are prone to data perturbations, adversarial attacks, and out-of-distribution inputs. To build a trusted AI system, it is therefore critical to accurately quantify the prediction uncertainties. While…
Deep learning algorithms have recently shown to be a successful tool in estimating parameters of statistical models for which simulation is easy, but likelihood computation is challenging. But the success of these approaches depends on…
The great success neural networks have achieved is inseparable from the application of gradient-descent (GD) algorithms. Based on GD, many variant algorithms have emerged to improve the GD optimization process. The gradient for…
The task of estimating the gradient of a function in the presence of noise is central to several forms of reinforcement learning, including policy search methods. We present two techniques for reducing gradient estimation errors in the…
We introduce Kalman Gradient Descent, a stochastic optimization algorithm that uses Kalman filtering to adaptively reduce gradient variance in stochastic gradient descent by filtering the gradient estimates. We present both a theoretical…
The rapid progress in machine learning in recent years has been based on a highly productive connection to gradient-based optimization. Further progress hinges in part on a shift in focus from pattern recognition to decision-making and…
Direct optimization is an appealing framework that replaces integration with optimization of a random objective for approximating gradients in models with discrete random variables. A$^\star$ sampling is a framework for optimizing such…
Of all the vector fields surrounding the minima of recurrent learning setups, the gradient field with its exploding and vanishing updates appears a poor choice for optimization, offering little beyond efficient computability. We seek to…