Related papers: Zeroth-Order Stochastic Coordinate Methods for Dec…

Zeroth-order optimization (ZO) algorithms have been recently used to solve black-box or simulation-based learning and control problems, where the gradient of the objective function cannot be easily computed but can be approximated using the…

Finite-difference methods are a class of algorithms designed to solve black-box optimization problems by approximating a gradient of the target function on a set of directions. In black-box optimization, the non-smooth setting is…

Fine-tuning Large Language Models (LLMs) has proven effective for a variety of downstream tasks. However, as LLMs grow in size, the memory demands for backpropagation become increasingly prohibitive. Zeroth-order (ZO) optimization methods…

In this work, we present a globalized stochastic semismooth Newton method for solving stochastic optimization problems involving smooth nonconvex and nonsmooth convex terms in the objective function. We assume that only noisy gradient and…

Rank-based zeroth-order (ZO) optimization -- which relies only on the ordering of function evaluations -- offers strong robustness to noise and monotone transformations, and underlies many successful algorithms such as CMA-ES, natural…

To solve unmodeled optimization problems with hard constraints, this paper proposes a novel zeroth-order approach called Safe Zeroth-order Optimization using Linear Programs (SZO-LP). The SZO-LP method solves a linear program in each…

Global optimization of expensive, derivative-free black-box functions requires extreme sample efficiency. While Bayesian optimization (BO) is the current state-of-the-art, its performance hinges on surrogate and acquisition function…

Zeroth-Order Optimization (ZOO) provides powerful tools for optimizing functions where explicit gradients are unavailable or expensive to compute. However, the underlying mechanisms of popular ZOO methods, particularly those employing…

Molecule optimization is an important problem in chemical discovery and has been approached using many techniques, including generative modeling, reinforcement learning, genetic algorithms, and much more. Recent work has also applied…

Distributed zeroth-order optimization is increasingly applied in heterogeneous scenarios where agents possess distinct data distributions and objectives. This heterogeneity poses fundamental challenges for convergence analysis, as existing…

Zeroth-order optimization is the process of minimizing an objective $f(x)$, given oracle access to evaluations at adaptively chosen inputs $x$. In this paper, we present two simple yet powerful GradientLess Descent (GLD) algorithms that do…

We consider the task of minimizing the sum of smooth and strongly convex functions stored in a decentralized manner across the nodes of a communication network whose links are allowed to change in time. We solve two fundamental problems for…

In this paper, we propose and analyze zeroth-order stochastic approximation algorithms for nonconvex and convex optimization, with a focus on addressing constrained optimization, high-dimensional setting and saddle-point avoiding. To handle…

We present the Stochastic alternate Linearization Method (StochaLM), a token-based method for distributed optimization. This algorithm finds the solution of a consensus optimization problem by solving a sequence of subproblems where some…

Fine-tuning large language models (LLMs) has achieved remarkable success across various NLP tasks, but the substantial memory overhead during backpropagation remains a critical bottleneck, especially as model scales grow. Zeroth-order (ZO)…

A framework based on iterative coordinate minimization (CM) is developed for stochastic convex optimization. Given that exact coordinate minimization is impossible due to the unknown stochastic nature of the objective function, the crux of…

We study novel robust zero-order algorithms with acceleration for the solution of real-time optimization problems. In particular, we propose a family of extremum seeking dynamics that can be universally modeled as singularly perturbed…

In the evolving landscape of natural language processing (NLP), fine-tuning pre-trained Large Language Models (LLMs) with first-order (FO) optimizers like SGD and Adam has become standard. Yet, as LLMs grow {in size}, the substantial memory…

In this paper, we consider smooth convex optimization problems with simple constraints and inexactness in the oracle information such as value, partial or directional derivatives of the objective function. We introduce a unifying framework,…

Zeroth-order (ZO) optimization, learning from finite differences of function evaluations without backpropagation, has recently regained attention in deep learning due to its memory efficiency and applicability to gray- or black-box…