Related papers: Optimality and Stability in Non-Convex Smooth Game…
We study a variant of a recently introduced min-max optimization framework where the max-player is constrained to update its parameters in a greedy manner until it reaches a first-order stationary point. Our equilibrium definition for this…
Policy gradient (PG) methods are a widely used reinforcement learning methodology in many applications such as video games, autonomous driving, and robotics. In spite of its empirical success, a rigorous understanding of the global…
We consider nonconvex-concave minimax problems, $\min_{\mathbf{x}} \max_{\mathbf{y} \in \mathcal{Y}} f(\mathbf{x}, \mathbf{y})$, where $f$ is nonconvex in $\mathbf{x}$ but concave in $\mathbf{y}$ and $\mathcal{Y}$ is a convex and bounded…
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…
The graduated optimization approach, also known as the continuation method, is a popular heuristic to solving non-convex problems that has received renewed interest over the last decade. Despite its popularity, very little is known in terms…
In this short note, we consider the problem of solving a min-max zero-sum game. This problem has been extensively studied in the convex-concave regime where the global solution can be computed efficiently. Recently, there have also been…
We propose a primal-dual smoothing framework for finding a near-stationary point of a class of non-smooth non-convex optimization problems with max-structure. We analyze the primal and dual gradient complexities of the framework via two…
We propose an alternating subgradient method with non-constant step sizes for solving convex-concave saddle-point problems associated with general convex-concave functions. We assume that the sequence of our step sizes is not summable but…
In this paper, we focus on solving a class of constrained non-convex non-concave saddle point problems in a decentralized manner by a group of nodes in a network. Specifically, we assume that each node has access to a summand of a global…
We study a fixed step-size noisy distributed gradient descent algorithm for solving optimization problems in which the objective is a finite sum of smooth but possibly non-convex functions. Random perturbations are introduced to the…
Using convex combination and linesearch techniques, we introduce a novel primal-dual algorithm for solving structured convex-concave saddle point problems with a generic smooth nonbilinear coupling term. Our adaptive linesearch strategy…
Invex programs are a special kind of non-convex problems which attain global minima at every stationary point. While classical first-order gradient descent methods can solve them, they converge very slowly. In this paper, we propose new…
Smooth minimax optimization problems play a central role in a wide range of applications, including machine learning, game theory, and operations research. However, existing algorithmic frameworks vary significantly depending on the problem…
We provide a unified analysis of two-timescale gradient descent ascent (TTGDA) for solving structured nonconvex minimax optimization problems in the form of $\min_\textbf{x} \max_{\textbf{y} \in Y} f(\textbf{x}, \textbf{y})$, where the…
We present a performant gradient method for smooth convex optimization, drawing inspiration from several recent advances in the field. Our algorithm, the Adaptive Subgame Perfect Gradient Method (ASPGM) is based on the notion of subgame…
This paper focuses on the online saddle point problem, which involves a sequence of two-player time-varying convex-concave games. Considering the nonstationarity of the environment, we adopt the duality gap and the dynamic Nash equilibrium…
Zero-sum Markov Stackelberg games can be used to model myriad problems, in domains ranging from economics to human robot interaction. In this paper, we develop policy gradient methods that solve these games in continuous state and action…
In part I we considered the problem of convergence to a saddle point of a concave-convex function via gradient dynamics and an exact characterization was given to their asymptotic behaviour. In part II we consider a general class of…
This paper focuses on stochastic proximal gradient methods for optimizing a smooth non-convex loss function with a non-smooth non-convex regularizer and convex constraints. To the best of our knowledge we present the first non-asymptotic…
Interesting theoretical associations have been established by recent papers between the fields of active learning and stochastic convex optimization due to the common role of feedback in sequential querying mechanisms. In this paper, we…