Related papers: Parameter-Agnostic Optimization under Relaxed Smoo…
We develop a high-dimensional scaling limit for Stochastic Gradient Descent with Polyak Momentum (SGD-M) and adaptive step-sizes. This provides a framework to rigourously compare online SGD with some of its popular variants. We show that…
Gradient descent is slow to converge for ill-conditioned problems and non-convex problems. An important technique for acceleration is step-size adaptation. The first part of this paper contains a detailed review of step-size adaptation…
We introduce a novel optimization problem formulation that departs from the conventional way of minimizing machine learning model loss as a black-box function. Unlike traditional formulations, the proposed approach explicitly incorporates…
Gradient normalization and soft clipping are two popular techniques for tackling instability issues and improving convergence of stochastic gradient descent (SGD) with momentum. In this article, we study these types of methods through the…
It is well-known that the reparameterisation gradient estimator, which exhibits low variance in practice, is biased for non-differentiable models. This may compromise correctness of gradient-based optimisation methods such as stochastic…
Symmetries are prevalent in deep learning and can significantly influence the learning dynamics of neural networks. In this paper, we examine how exponential symmetries -- a broad subclass of continuous symmetries present in the model…
In this paper, we investigate a general class of stochastic gradient descent (SGD) algorithms, called Conditioned SGD, based on a preconditioning of the gradient direction. Using a discrete-time approach with martingale tools, we establish…
We consider distributed optimization under communication constraints for training deep learning models. We propose a new algorithm, whose parameter updates rely on two forces: a regular gradient step, and a corrective direction dictated by…
We introduce a general method for improving the convergence rate of gradient-based optimizers that is easy to implement and works well in practice. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the method in a range of optimization problems by…
Nonsmooth sparsity constrained optimization encompasses a broad spectrum of applications in machine learning. This problem is generally non-convex and NP-hard. Existing solutions to this problem exhibit several notable limitations,…
We study convergence properties of Stochastic Gradient Descent (SGD) for convex objectives without assumptions on smoothness or strict convexity. We consider the question of establishing that with high probability the objective evaluated at…
In this paper we consider a composite optimization problem that minimizes the sum of a weakly smooth function and a convex function with either a bounded domain or a uniformly convex structure. In particular, we first present a…
We propose AEGD, a new algorithm for first-order gradient-based optimization of non-convex objective functions, based on a dynamically updated energy variable. The method is shown to be unconditionally energy stable, irrespective of the…
A recent line of research has shown that gradient-based algorithms with random initialization can converge to the global minima of the training loss for over-parameterized (i.e., sufficiently wide) deep neural networks. However, the…
A framework is introduced for solving a sequence of slowly changing optimization problems, including those arising in regression and classification applications, using optimization algorithms such as stochastic gradient descent (SGD). The…
Stochastic gradient descent (SGD) is a popular and efficient method with wide applications in training deep neural nets and other nonconvex models. While the behavior of SGD is well understood in the convex learning setting, the existing…
How does the choice of optimization algorithm shape a model's ability to learn features? To address this question for steepest descent methods --including sign descent, which is closely related to Adam --we introduce steepest mirror flows…
Non-convex optimization problems are ubiquitous in machine learning, especially in Deep Learning. While such complex problems can often be successfully optimized in practice by using stochastic gradient descent (SGD), theoretical analysis…
A central issue in machine learning is how to train models on sensitive user data. Industry has widely adopted a simple algorithm: Stochastic Gradient Descent with noise (a.k.a. Stochastic Gradient Langevin Dynamics). However, foundational…
This letter investigates the convergence and concentration properties of the Stochastic Mirror Descent (SMD) algorithm utilizing biased stochastic subgradients. We establish the almost sure convergence of the algorithm's iterates under the…