Related papers: On the Impossibility of Global Convergence in Mult…
We study the convergence to local Nash equilibria of gradient methods for two-player zero-sum differentiable games. It is well-known that such dynamics converge locally when $S \succ 0$ and may diverge when $S=0$, where $S\succeq 0$ is the…
In this paper, we consider multi-agent learning via online gradient descent in a class of games called $\lambda$-cocoercive games, a fairly broad class of games that admits many Nash equilibria and that properly includes unconstrained…
We examine online safe multi-agent reinforcement learning using constrained Markov games in which agents compete by maximizing their expected total rewards under a constraint on expected total utilities. Our focus is confined to an episodic…
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…
The extragradient method has gained popularity due to its robust convergence properties for differentiable games. Unlike single-objective optimization, game dynamics involve complex interactions reflected by the eigenvalues of the game…
Bilevel reinforcement learning (RL), which features intertwined two-level problems, has attracted growing interest recently. The inherent non-convexity of the lower-level RL problem is, however, to be an impediment to developing bilevel…
In this work, we consider smooth unconstrained optimization problems and we deal with the class of gradient methods with momentum, i.e., descent algorithms where the search direction is defined as a linear combination of the current…
Min-max optimization problems arise in several key machine learning setups, including adversarial learning and generative modeling. In their general form, in absence of convexity/concavity assumptions, finding pure equilibria of the…
Motivated by applications in machine learning and statistics, we study distributed optimization problems over a network of processors, where the goal is to optimize a global objective composed of a sum of local functions. In these problems,…
Recently, a new class of non-convex optimization problems motivated by the statistical problem of learning an acyclic directed graphical model from data has attracted significant interest. While existing work uses standard first-order…
We explore why many recently proposed robust estimation problems are efficiently solvable, even though the underlying optimization problems are non-convex. We study the loss landscape of these robust estimation problems, and identify the…
Methods from convex optimization are widely used as building blocks for deep learning algorithms. However, the reasons for their empirical success are unclear, since modern convolutional networks (convnets), incorporating rectifier units…
This paper presents a particle-based optimization method designed for addressing minimization problems with equality constraints, particularly in cases where the loss function exhibits non-differentiability or non-convexity. The proposed…
Decentralized optimization is a powerful paradigm that finds applications in engineering and learning design. This work studies decentralized composite optimization problems with non-smooth regularization terms. Most existing gradient-based…
Learning in multi-player games can model a large variety of practical scenarios, where each player seeks to optimize its own local objective function, which at the same time relies on the actions taken by others. Motivated by the frequent…
Synthesizing near-optimal mixed strategies for zero-sum differential games (ZSDGs) has been a longstanding challenge. Existing research mainly focuses on characterizing the theoretical value function, while the practical design of…
This paper considers the analysis of continuous time gradient-based optimization algorithms through the lens of nonlinear contraction theory. It demonstrates that in the case of a time-invariant objective, most elementary results on…
Minimax problems of the form $\min_x \max_y \Psi(x,y)$ have attracted increased interest largely due to advances in machine learning, in particular generative adversarial networks. These are typically trained using variants of stochastic…
The paper provides global optimization algorithms for two particularly difficult nonconvex problems raised by hybrid system identification: switching linear regression and bounded-error estimation. While most works focus on local…
We establish novel generalization bounds for learning algorithms that converge to global minima. We do so by deriving black-box stability results that only depend on the convergence of a learning algorithm and the geometry around the…