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Related papers: Solving Non-Convex Non-Concave Min-Max Games Under…

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We study the computational complexity of the problem of computing local min-max equilibria of games with a nonconvex-nonconcave utility function $f$. From the work of Daskalakis, Skoulakis, and Zampetakis [DSZ21], this problem was known to…

Computational Complexity · Computer Science 2026-02-05 Martino Bernasconi , Matteo Castiglioni

We study generalized Nash equilibrium (GNE) problems in games with quadratic costs and individual linear equality constraints. Departing from approaches that require strong monotonicity and/or shared constraints, we reformulate the KKT…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-12-23 Tatiana Tatarenko , Lucas Wey Hacker

We consider max-min and min-max problems with objective functions that are possibly non-smooth, submodular with respect to the minimiser and concave with respect to the maximiser. We investigate the performance of a zeroth-order method…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-05-29 Amir Ali Farzin , Yuen-Man Pun , Philipp Braun , Tyler Summers , Iman Shames

We propose an efficient algorithm for finding first-order Nash equilibria in min-max problems of the form $\min_{x \in X}\max_{y\in Y} F(x,y)$, where the objective function is smooth in both variables and concave with respect to $y$; the…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-05-04 Dmitrii M. Ostrovskii , Andrew Lowy , Meisam Razaviyayn

In this paper we present a first-order method that admits near-optimal convergence rates for convex/concave min-max problems while requiring a simple and intuitive analysis. Similarly to the seminal work of Nemirovski and the recent…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2023-01-18 Volkan Cevher , Georgios Piliouras , Ryann Sim , Stratis Skoulakis

Zero-sum and non-zero-sum (aka general-sum) games are relevant in a wide range of applications. While general non-zero-sum games are computationally hard, researchers focus on the special class of monotone games for gradient-based…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-12-03 Ruichen Luo , Sebastian U. Stich , Krishnendu Chatterjee

Composite minimization involves a collection of functions which are aggregated in a nonsmooth manner. It covers, as a particular case, smooth approximation of minimax games, minimization of max-type functions, and simple composite…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2025-03-04 Yassine Nabou , Ion Necoara

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…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-01-14 Lampros Flokas , Emmanouil-Vasileios Vlatakis-Gkaragkounis , Georgios Piliouras

Recent successes of game-theoretic formulations in ML have caused a resurgence of research interest in differentiable games. Overwhelmingly, that research focuses on methods and upper bounds on their speed of convergence. In this work, we…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2020-09-16 Adam Ibrahim , Waïss Azizian , Gauthier Gidel , Ioannis Mitliagkas

In this work, we study first-order algorithms for solving Bilevel Optimization (BO) where the objective functions are smooth but possibly nonconvex in both levels and the variables are restricted to closed convex sets. As a first step, we…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2024-02-13 Jeongyeol Kwon , Dohyun Kwon , Stephen Wright , Robert Nowak

We propose a MINRES-based Newton-type algorithm for solving unconstrained nonconvex optimization problems. Our approach uses the minimal residual method (MINRES), a well-known solver for indefinite symmetric linear systems, to compute…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-01-06 Hanfeng Zeng , Yang Liu , Wenqing Ouyang , Andre Milzarek

It is known that when minimizing smooth Polyak-{\L}ojasiewicz (PL) functions, momentum algorithms cannot significantly improve the convergence bound of gradient descent, contrasting with the acceleration phenomenon occurring in the strongly…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2026-02-11 Julien Hermant

Zero-sum games arise in a wide variety of problems, including robust optimization and adversarial learning. However, algorithms deployed for finding a local Nash equilibrium in these games often converge to non-Nash stationary points. This…

Computer Science and Game Theory · Computer Science 2025-09-30 Kushagra Gupta , Xinjie Liu , Ross Allen , Ufuk Topcu , David Fridovich-Keil

Policy gradients methods apply to complex, poorly understood, control problems by performing stochastic gradient descent over a parameterized class of polices. Unfortunately, even for simple control problems solvable by standard dynamic…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2022-06-22 Jalaj Bhandari , Daniel Russo

Adversarial training, a special case of multi-objective optimization, is an increasingly prevalent machine learning technique: some of its most notable applications include GAN-based generative modeling and self-play techniques in…

Machine Learning · Statistics 2021-03-17 Gauthier Gidel , David Balduzzi , Wojciech Marian Czarnecki , Marta Garnelo , Yoram Bachrach

The use of min-max optimization in adversarial training of deep neural network classifiers and training of generative adversarial networks has motivated the study of nonconvex-nonconcave optimization objectives, which frequently arise in…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-03-02 Jelena Diakonikolas , Constantinos Daskalakis , Michael I. Jordan

We propose and analyze a randomized zeroth-order approach based on approximating the exact gradient byfinite differences computed in a set of orthogonal random directions that changes with each iteration. A number ofpreviously proposed…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-11-16 David Kozak , Cesare Molinari , Lorenzo Rosasco , Luis Tenorio , Silvia Villa

We consider the fundamental problem in non-convex optimization of efficiently reaching a stationary point. In contrast to the convex case, in the long history of this basic problem, the only known theoretical results on first-order…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2016-08-26 Zeyuan Allen-Zhu , Elad Hazan

This paper studies first order methods for solving smooth minimax optimization problems $\min_x \max_y g(x,y)$ where $g(\cdot,\cdot)$ is smooth and $g(x,\cdot)$ is concave for each $x$. In terms of $g(\cdot,y)$, we consider two settings --…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2019-07-03 Kiran Koshy Thekumparampil , Prateek Jain , Praneeth Netrapalli , Sewoong Oh

There are much recent interests in solving noncovnex min-max optimization problems due to its broad applications in many areas including machine learning, networked resource allocations, and distributed optimization. Perhaps, the most…

Optimization and Control · Mathematics 2021-12-20 Thinh T. Doan