Related papers: GradVis: Visualization and Second Order Analysis o…
The success of deep neural networks hinges on our ability to accurately and efficiently optimize high-dimensional, non-convex functions. In this paper, we empirically investigate the loss functions of state-of-the-art networks, and how…
Training a neural network requires navigating a high-dimensional, non-convex loss surface to find parameters that minimize this loss. In many ways, it is surprising that optimizers such as stochastic gradient descent and ADAM can reliably…
Deep neural networks are workhorse models in machine learning with multiple layers of non-linear functions composed in series. Their loss function is highly non-convex, yet empirically even gradient descent minimisation is sufficient to…
The goal of this tutorial is to introduce key models, algorithms, and open questions related to the use of optimization methods for solving problems arising in machine learning. It is written with an INFORMS audience in mind, specifically…
Despite their effective use in various fields, many aspects of neural networks are poorly understood. One important way to investigate the characteristics of neural networks is to explore the loss landscape. However, most models produce a…
Neural networks are trained by optimizing multi-dimensional sets of fitting parameters on non-convex loss landscapes. Low-loss regions of the landscapes correspond to the parameter sets that perform well on the training data. A key issue in…
Graduated optimization is a global optimization technique that is used to minimize a multimodal nonconvex function by smoothing the objective function with noise and gradually refining the solution. This paper experimentally evaluates the…
We present a non-convex optimization algorithm metaheuristic, based on the training of a deep generative network, which enables effective searching within continuous, ultra-high dimensional landscapes. During network training, populations…
Graph Neural Networks (GNNs) are powerful models for graph-structured data, with broad applications. However, the interplay between GNN parameter optimization, expressivity, and generalization remains poorly understood. We address this by…
Due to the non-convex nature of training Deep Neural Network (DNN) models, their effectiveness relies on the use of non-convex optimization heuristics. Traditional methods for training DNNs often require costly empirical methods to produce…
Investigations into the loss landscapes of deep neural networks are often laborious. This work documents our user-driven approach to create a platform for semi-automating this process. LossPlot accepts data in the form of a csv, and allows…
Solving inverse problems in physics is central to understanding complex systems and advancing technologies in various fields. Iterative optimization algorithms, commonly used to solve these problems, often encounter local minima, chaos, or…
Many machine learning methods operate by inverting a neural network at inference time, which has become a popular technique for solving inverse problems in computer vision, robotics, and graphics. However, these methods often involve…
The loss landscape of deep neural networks (DNNs) is commonly considered complex and wildly fluctuated. However, an interesting observation is that the loss surfaces plotted along Gaussian noise directions are almost v-basin ones with the…
There are many surprising and perhaps counter-intuitive properties of optimization of deep neural networks. We propose and experimentally verify a unified phenomenological model of the loss landscape that incorporates many of them. High…
Optimization techniques are of great importance to effectively and efficiently train a deep neural network (DNN). It has been shown that using the first and second order statistics (e.g., mean and variance) to perform Z-score…
Recent years have produced great advances in training large, deep neural networks (DNNs), including notable successes in training convolutional neural networks (convnets) to recognize natural images. However, our understanding of how these…
In this paper we model the loss function of high-dimensional optimization problems by a Gaussian random field, or equivalently a Gaussian process. Our aim is to study gradient descent in such loss functions or energy landscapes and compare…
Second-order optimizers hold intriguing potential for deep learning, but suffer from increased cost and sensitivity to the non-convexity of the loss surface as compared to gradient-based approaches. We introduce a coordinate descent method…
Neural network optimization remains one of the most consequential yet poorly understood challenges in modern AI research, where improvements in training algorithms can lead to enhanced feature learning in foundation models,…