Related papers: The Mechanics of n-Player Differentiable Games
Deep learning is built on the foundational guarantee that gradient descent on an objective function converges to local minima. Unfortunately, this guarantee fails in settings, such as generative adversarial nets, that exhibit multiple…
The success of adversarial formulations in machine learning has brought renewed motivation for smooth games. In this work, we focus on the class of stochastic Hamiltonian methods and provide the first convergence guarantees for certain…
Gradient-based methods for two-player games produce rich dynamics that can solve challenging problems, yet can be difficult to stabilize and understand. Part of this complexity originates from the discrete update steps given by simultaneous…
We formulate a general framework for competitive gradient-based learning that encompasses a wide breadth of multi-agent learning algorithms, and analyze the limiting behavior of competitive gradient-based learning algorithms using dynamical…
Motivated by the pursuit of a systematic computational and algorithmic understanding of Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs), we present a simple yet unified non-asymptotic local convergence theory for smooth two-player games, which…
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…
Learning in a multi-agent system is challenging because agents are simultaneously learning and the environment is not stationary, undermining convergence guarantees. To address this challenge, this paper presents a new gradient-based…
Many recent AI architectures are inspired by zero-sum games, however, the behavior of their dynamics is still not well understood. Inspired by this, we study standard gradient descent ascent (GDA) dynamics in a specific class of non-convex…
The stability and generalization of stochastic gradient-based methods provide valuable insights into understanding the algorithmic performance of machine learning models. As the main workhorse for deep learning, stochastic gradient descent…
Learning processes in games explain how players grapple with one another in seeking an equilibrium. We study a natural model of learning based on individual gradients in two-player continuous games. In such games, the arguably natural…
In this work, we establish a frequency-domain framework for analyzing gradient-based algorithms in linear minimax optimization problems; specifically, our approach is based on the Z-transform, a powerful tool applied in Control Theory and…
Towards characterizing the optimization landscape of games, this paper analyzes the stability of gradient-based dynamics near fixed points of two-player continuous games. We introduce the quadratic numerical range as a method to…
The two-timescale gradient descent-ascent (GDA) is a canonical gradient algorithm designed to find Nash equilibria in min-max games. We analyze the two-timescale GDA by investigating the effects of learning rate ratios on convergence…
We introduce a new algorithm for the numerical computation of Nash equilibria of competitive two-player games. Our method is a natural generalization of gradient descent to the two-player setting where the update is given by the Nash…
We consider distributed smooth nonconvex unconstrained optimization over networks, modeled as a connected graph. We examine the behavior of distributed gradient-based algorithms near strict saddle points. Specifically, we establish that (i)…
Most of the literature on learning in games has focused on the restrictive setting where the underlying repeated game does not change over time. Much less is known about the convergence of no-regret learning algorithms in dynamic multiagent…
In multiagent environments, the capability of learning is important for an agent to behave appropriately in face of unknown opponents and dynamic environment. From the system designer's perspective, it is desirable if the agents can learn…
Games generalize the single-objective optimization paradigm by introducing different objective functions for different players. Differentiable games often proceed by simultaneous or alternating gradient updates. In machine learning, games…
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…
Considering a class of gradient-based multi-agent learning algorithms in non-cooperative settings, we provide local convergence guarantees to a neighborhood of a stable local Nash equilibrium. In particular, we consider continuous games…