Related papers: On the Noisy Gradient Descent that Generalizes as …
The deep learning recipe of casting real-world problems as mathematical optimisation and tackling the optimisation by training deep neural networks using gradient-based optimisation has undoubtedly proven to be a fruitful one. The…
We give a new separation result between the generalization performance of stochastic gradient descent (SGD) and of full-batch gradient descent (GD) in the fundamental stochastic convex optimization model. While for SGD it is well-known that…
The multiplicative structure of parameters and input data in the first layer of neural networks is explored to build connection between the landscape of the loss function with respect to parameters and the landscape of the model function…
For infinitesimal learning rates, stochastic gradient descent (SGD) follows the path of gradient flow on the full batch loss function. However moderately large learning rates can achieve higher test accuracies, and this generalization…
Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) exhibits strong algorithmic regularization effects in practice, which has been hypothesized to play an important role in the generalization of modern machine learning approaches. In this work, we seek to…
We perform an experimental study of the dynamics of Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) in learning deep neural networks for several real and synthetic classification tasks. We show that in the initial epochs, almost all of the performance…
Differentially private learning algorithms inject noise into the learning process. While the most common private learning algorithm, DP-SGD, adds independent Gaussian noise in each iteration, recent work on matrix factorization mechanisms…
Random label noises (or observational noises) widely exist in practical machine learning settings. While previous studies primarily focus on the affects of label noises to the performance of learning, our work intends to investigate the…
The success of SGD in deep learning has been ascribed by prior works to the implicit bias induced by finite batch sizes ("SGD noise"). While prior works focused on offline learning (i.e., multiple-epoch training), we study the impact of SGD…
Gradient Smoothing is an efficient approach to reducing noise in gradient-based model explanation method. SmoothGrad adds Gaussian noise to mitigate much of these noise. However, the crucial hyper-parameter in this method, the variance…
We analyze the variance of stochastic gradients along negative curvature directions in certain non-convex machine learning models and show that stochastic gradients exhibit a strong component along these directions. Furthermore, we show…
Analyzing neural network dynamics via stochastic gradient descent (SGD) is crucial to building theoretical foundations for deep learning. Previous work has analyzed structured inputs within the \textit{hidden manifold model}, often under…
Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) is central to deep learning, yet the dynamical origin of its preference for flatter, more generalizable solutions remains unclear. Here, by analyzing SGD learning dynamics, we identify a nonequilibrium…
The mini-batch stochastic gradient descent (SGD) algorithm is widely used in training machine learning models, in particular deep learning models. We study SGD dynamics under linear regression and two-layer linear networks, with an easy…
Deep neural networks achieve high prediction accuracy when the train and test distributions coincide. In practice though, various types of corruptions occur which deviate from this setup and cause severe performance degradations. Few…
Numerous empirical evidences have corroborated the importance of noise in nonconvex optimization problems. The theory behind such empirical observations, however, is still largely unknown. This paper studies this fundamental problem through…
Multi-epoch, small-batch, Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) has been the method of choice for learning with large over-parameterized models. A popular theory for explaining why SGD works well in practice is that the algorithm has an…
In this paper, we consider a general stochastic optimization problem which is often at the core of supervised learning, such as deep learning and linear classification. We consider a standard stochastic gradient descent (SGD) method with a…
We derive a simple and model-independent formula for the change in the generalization gap due to a gradient descent update. We then compare the change in the test error for stochastic gradient descent to the change in test error from an…
The challenge of overfitting, in which the model memorizes the training data and fails to generalize to test data, has become increasingly significant in the training of large neural networks. To tackle this challenge, Sharpness-Aware…