Related papers: On the equivalence of different adaptive batch siz…
Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) is a central tool in machine learning. We prove that SGD converges to zero loss, even with a fixed (non-vanishing) learning rate - in the special case of homogeneous linear classifiers with smooth monotone…
Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) and its variants have established themselves as the go-to algorithms for large-scale machine learning problems with independent samples due to their generalization performance and intrinsic computational…
This paper presents an algorithmic framework for solving unconstrained stochastic optimization problems using only stochastic function evaluations. We employ central finite-difference based gradient estimation methods to approximate the…
This paper proposes a thorough theoretical analysis of Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) with non-increasing step sizes. First, we show that the recursion defining SGD can be provably approximated by solutions of a time inhomogeneous…
We develop new sub-optimality bounds for gradient descent (GD) that depend on the conditioning of the objective along the path of optimization rather than on global, worst-case constants. Key to our proofs is directional smoothness, a…
We introduce data structures for solving robust regression through stochastic gradient descent (SGD) by sampling gradients with probability proportional to their norm, i.e., importance sampling. Although SGD is widely used for large scale…
In this work we investigate the practicality of stochastic gradient descent and recently introduced variants with variance-reduction techniques in imaging inverse problems. Such algorithms have been shown in the machine learning literature…
Stopping criteria for Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) methods play important roles from enabling adaptive step size schemes to providing rigor for downstream analyses such as asymptotic inference. Unfortunately, current stopping criteria…
An increasing number of machine learning problems, such as robust or adversarial variants of existing algorithms, require minimizing a loss function that is itself defined as a maximum. Carrying a loop of stochastic gradient ascent (SGA)…
Many iterative procedures in stochastic optimization exhibit a transient phase followed by a stationary phase. During the transient phase the procedure converges towards a region of interest, and during the stationary phase the procedure…
Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) optimization algorithms are key ingredients in a series of machine learning applications. In this article we perform a rigorous strong error analysis for SGD optimization algorithms. In particular, we prove…
In this work, we describe a generic approach to show convergence with high probability for both stochastic convex and non-convex optimization with sub-Gaussian noise. In previous works for convex optimization, either the convergence is only…
Gradient clipping is a popular modification to standard (stochastic) gradient descent, at every iteration limiting the gradient norm to a certain value $c >0$. It is widely used for example for stabilizing the training of deep learning…
We introduce a novel algorithm for gradient-based optimization of stochastic objective functions. The method may be seen as a variant of SGD with momentum equipped with an adaptive learning rate automatically adjusted by an 'energy'…
We provide tight finite-time convergence bounds for gradient descent and stochastic gradient descent on quadratic functions, when the gradients are delayed and reflect iterates from $\tau$ rounds ago. First, we show that without stochastic…
Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) is the workhorse algorithm of deep learning technology. At each step of the training phase, a mini batch of samples is drawn from the training dataset and the weights of the neural network are adjusted…
Stochastic optimization algorithms with variance reduction have proven successful for minimizing large finite sums of functions. Unfortunately, these techniques are unable to deal with stochastic perturbations of input data, induced for…
Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) with mini-batching is a standard tool in large-scale optimization, yet its theoretical properties under heavy-tailed gradient noise remain largely unexplored. In this paper we study SGD with increasing…
Stochastic gradient descent is the method of choice for large scale optimization of machine learning objective functions. Yet, its performance is greatly variable and heavily depends on the choice of the stepsizes. This has motivated a…
Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) on a low-rank factorization is commonly employed to speed up matrix problems including matrix completion, subspace tracking, and SDP relaxation. In this paper, we exhibit a step size scheme for SGD on a…