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In many optimization problems arising from scientific, engineering and artificial intelligence applications, objective and constraint functions are available only as the output of a black-box or simulation oracle that does not provide…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-08-15 Jeffrey Larson , Matt Menickelly , Stefan M. Wild

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…

In this paper, we prove new complexity bounds for zeroth-order methods in non-convex optimization with inexact observations of the objective function values. We use the Gaussian smoothing approach of Nesterov and Spokoiny [2015] and extend…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-01-14 Innokentiy Shibaev , Pavel Dvurechensky , Alexander Gasnikov

In this paper, we study and analyze zeroth-order stochastic approximation algorithms for solving bilvel problems, when neither the upper/lower objective values, nor their unbiased gradient estimates are available. In particular, exploiting…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-04-02 Alireza Aghasi , Saeed Ghadimi

In this paper, we propose and analyze algorithms for zeroth-order optimization of non-convex composite objectives, focusing on reducing the complexity dependence on dimensionality. This is achieved by exploiting the low dimensional…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2022-08-16 Weijia Shao , Sahin Albayrak

Gradient-free/zeroth-order methods for black-box convex optimization have been extensively studied in the last decade with the main focus on oracle calls complexity. In this paper, besides the oracle complexity, we focus also on iteration…

We present a stochastic descent algorithm for unconstrained optimization that is particularly efficient when the objective function is slow to evaluate and gradients are not easily obtained, as in some PDE-constrained optimization and…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-07-08 David Kozak , Stephen Becker , Alireza Doostan , Luis Tenorio

Stochastic convex optimization algorithms are the most popular way to train machine learning models on large-scale data. Scaling up the training process of these models is crucial, but the most popular algorithm, Stochastic Gradient Descent…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2018-10-30 Ashok Cutkosky , Robert Busa-Fekete

Zero-order (ZO) optimization is a powerful tool for dealing with realistic constraints. On the other hand, the gradient-tracking (GT) technique proved to be an efficient method for distributed optimization aiming to achieve consensus.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-10-10 Elissa Mhanna , Mohamad Assaad

We study stochastic zeroth-order optimization with decision-dependent distributions, where the sampling law depends on the current decision and only noisy function values are available. For the non-smooth non-convex setting, we establish an…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-05-08 Chengchang Liu , Zongqi Wan , Haishan Ye , John C. S. Lui

The conditional gradient idea proposed by Marguerite Frank and Philip Wolfe in 1956 was so well received by the community that new algorithms (also called Frank--Wolfe type algorithms) are still being actively created. In this paper, we…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2023-05-26 Aleksandr Lobanov , Anton Anikin , Alexander Gasnikov , Alexander Gornov , Sergey Chukanov

In this paper, we propose a method of distributed stochastic gradient descent (SGD), with low communication load and computational complexity, and still fast convergence. To reduce the communication load, at each iteration of the algorithm,…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-03-30 Naeimeh Omidvar , Mohammad Ali Maddah-Ali , Hamed Mahdavi

Zeroth-order optimization addresses problems where gradient information is inaccessible or impractical to compute. While most existing methods rely on first-order approximations, incorporating second-order (curvature) information can, in…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-07-09 Dongyoon Kim , Sungjae Lee , Wonjin Lee , Kwang In Kim

Derivative-free optimization algorithms are particularly useful for tackling blackbox optimization problems where the objective function arises from complex and expensive procedures that preclude the use of classical gradient-based methods.…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-03-31 El Houcine Bergou , Youssef Diouane , Vyacheslav Kungurtsev , Clément W. Royer

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…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-07-31 Feihu Huang , Shangqian Gao , Songcan Chen , Heng Huang

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…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2020-11-11 Mayumi Ohta , Nathaniel Berger , Artem Sokolov , Stefan Riezler

We present a novel gradient-free algorithm to solve a convex stochastic optimization problem, such as those encountered in medicine, physics, and machine learning (e.g., adversarial multi-armed bandit problem), where the objective function…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-11-22 Georgii Bychkov , Darina Dvinskikh , Anastasia Antsiferova , Alexander Gasnikov , Aleksandr Lobanov

Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) is one of the simplest and most popular stochastic optimization methods. While it has already been theoretically studied for decades, the classical analysis usually required non-trivial smoothness…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2013-01-01 Ohad Shamir , Tong Zhang

We propose a new stochastic optimization framework for empirical risk minimization problems such as those that arise in machine learning. The traditional approaches, such as (mini-batch) stochastic gradient descent (SGD), utilize an…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2020-02-04 Kenji Kawaguchi , Haihao Lu

Stochastic optimization algorithms with variance reduction have proven successful for minimizing large finite sums of functions. Unfortunately, these techniques are unable to deal with stochastic perturbations of input data, induced for…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2017-11-16 Alberto Bietti , Julien Mairal