Related papers: Noise-induced degeneration in online learning
We analyze recurrent neural networks with diagonal hidden-to-hidden weight matrices, trained with gradient descent in the supervised learning setting, and prove that gradient descent can achieve optimality \emph{without} massive…
We study stochastic gradient descent (SGD) for composite optimization problems with $N$ sequential operators subject to perturbations in both the forward and backward passes. Unlike classical analyses that treat gradient noise as additive…
This paper studies interpretability of convolutional networks by means of saliency maps. Most approaches based on Class Activation Maps (CAM) combine information from fully connected layers and gradient through variants of backpropagation.…
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…
Although deep learning has shown its powerful performance in many applications, the mathematical principles behind neural networks are still mysterious. In this paper, we consider the problem of learning a one-hidden-layer neural network…
The utilization of residual learning has become widespread in deep and scalable neural nets. However, the fundamental principles that contribute to the success of residual learning remain elusive, thus hindering effective training of plain…
Continual learning, the ability of a model to adapt to an ongoing sequence of tasks without forgetting earlier ones, is a central goal of artificial intelligence. To better understand its underlying mechanisms, we study the limitations of…
Neural networks are usually trained by some form of stochastic gradient descent (SGD)). A number of strategies are in common use intended to improve SGD optimization, such as learning rate schedules, momentum, and batching. These are…
Multi-layer neural networks are among the most powerful models in machine learning, yet the fundamental reasons for this success defy mathematical understanding. Learning a neural network requires to optimize a non-convex high-dimensional…
We study the problem of estimating low-rank matrices from linear measurements (a.k.a., matrix sensing) through nonconvex optimization. We propose an efficient stochastic variance reduced gradient descent algorithm to solve a nonconvex…
Generating multiple distinct subjects remains a challenge for existing text-to-image diffusion models. Complex prompts often lead to subject leakage, causing inaccuracies in quantities, attributes, and visual features. Preventing leakage…
Grokking is the phenomenon whereby, unlike the training performance, which peaks early in the training process, the test/generalization performance of a model stagnates over arbitrarily many epochs and then suddenly jumps to usually close…
AI training datasets will inevitably contain AI-generated examples, leading to ``feedback'' in which the output of one model impacts the training of another. It is known that such iterative feedback can lead to model collapse, yet the…
In view of solving convex optimization problems with noisy gradient input, we analyze the asymptotic behavior of gradient-like flows under stochastic disturbances. Specifically, we focus on the widely studied class of mirror descent schemes…
Implicit regularization refers to the tendency of local search algorithms to converge to low-dimensional solutions, even when such structures are not explicitly enforced. Despite its ubiquity, the mechanism underlying this behavior remains…
Many tasks in machine learning and signal processing can be solved by minimizing a convex function of a measure. This includes sparse spikes deconvolution or training a neural network with a single hidden layer. For these problems, we study…
We study inference in models where a transformation of parameters exhibits first-order degeneracy -- that is, its gradient is zero or close to zero, making the standard delta method invalid. A leading example is causal mediation analysis,…
A main puzzle of deep networks revolves around the absence of overfitting despite large overparametrization and despite the large capacity demonstrated by zero training error on randomly labeled data. In this note, we show that the dynamics…
An open question in the Deep Learning community is why neural networks trained with Gradient Descent generalize well on real datasets even though they are capable of fitting random data. We propose an approach to answering this question…
Recent analyses of certain gradient descent optimization methods have shown that performance can degrade in some settings - such as with stochasticity or implicit momentum. In deep reinforcement learning (Deep RL), such optimization methods…