Related papers: Almost Sure Saddle Avoidance of Stochastic Gradien…
We prove that stochastic gradient descent (SGD) finds a solution that achieves $(1-\epsilon)$ classification accuracy on the entire dataset. We do so under two main assumptions: (1. Local progress) The model accuracy improves on average…
The success of neural networks over the past decade has established them as effective models for many relevant data generating processes. Statistical theory on neural networks indicates graceful scaling of sample complexity. For example,…
Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) is a premium optimization method for training neural networks, especially for learning objectively defined labels such as image objects and events. When a neural network is instead faced with subjectively…
Recent studies have shown that heavy tails can emerge in stochastic optimization and that the heaviness of the tails have links to the generalization error. While these studies have shed light on interesting aspects of the generalization…
As one of the most fundamental stochastic optimization algorithms, stochastic gradient descent (SGD) has been intensively developed and extensively applied in machine learning in the past decade. There have been some modified SGD-type…
In this paper we analyze the behaviour of the stochastic gradient descent (SGD), a widely used method in supervised learning for optimizing neural network weights via a minimization of non-convex loss functions. Since the pioneering work of…
Neural networks are trained by optimizing multi-dimensional sets of fitting parameters on non-convex loss landscapes. Low-loss regions of the landscapes correspond to the parameter sets that perform well on the training data. A key issue in…
We showcase important features of the dynamics of the Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) in the training of neural networks. We present empirical observations that commonly used large step sizes (i) lead the iterates to jump from one side of…
We study the convergence of accelerated stochastic gradient descent for strongly convex objectives under the growth condition, which states that the variance of stochastic gradient is bounded by a multiplicative part that grows with the…
We analyze a batched variant of Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) with weighted sampling distribution for smooth and non-smooth objective functions. We show that by distributing the batches computationally, a significant speedup in the…
Modern machine learning focuses on highly expressive models that are able to fit or interpolate the data completely, resulting in zero training loss. For such models, we show that the stochastic gradients of common loss functions satisfy a…
Saddle points provide a hierarchical view of the energy landscape, revealing transition pathways and interconnected basins of attraction, and offering insight into the global structure, metastability, and possible collective mechanisms of…
Stochastic gradient descent is one of the most common iterative algorithms used in machine learning and its convergence analysis is a rich area of research. Understanding its convergence properties can help inform what modifications of it…
Deep linear networks (DLNs) are used as an analytically tractable model of the training dynamics of deep neural networks. While gradient descent in DLNs is known to exhibit saddle-to-saddle dynamics, the impact of stochastic gradient…
Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) and adaptive gradient methods, such as Adam and RMSProp, have been widely used in training deep neural networks. We empirically show that while the difference between the standard generalization performance…
The main aim of this paper is to provide an analysis of gradient descent (GD) algorithms with gradient errors that do not necessarily vanish, asymptotically. In particular, sufficient conditions are presented for both stability (almost sure…
Variance reduction (VR) methods employ stochastic gradients with decreasing variance, and they have been widely applied to solve large-scale optimization problems in machine learning because of their efficiency. Existing theoretical studies…
Stochastic gradient descent based algorithms are typically used as the general optimization tools for most deep learning models. A Restricted Boltzmann Machine (RBM) is a probabilistic generative model that can be stacked to construct deep…
We develop the mathematical foundations of the stochastic modified equations (SME) framework for analyzing the dynamics of stochastic gradient algorithms, where the latter is approximated by a class of stochastic differential equations with…
While stochastic gradient descent (SGD) is still the \emph{de facto} algorithm in deep learning, adaptive methods like Clipped SGD/Adam have been observed to outperform SGD across important tasks, such as attention models. The settings…