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The paper proposes a new algorithm called SymBa that aims to achieve more biologically plausible learning than Back-Propagation (BP). The algorithm is based on the Forward-Forward (FF) algorithm, which is a BP-free method for training…

Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition · Computer Science 2023-03-16 Heung-Chang Lee , Jeonggeun Song

The long-held assumption that backpropagation (BP) is essential for state-of-the-art performance is challenged by this work. We present rigorous, hardware-validated evidence that the Mono-Forward (MF) algorithm, a backpropagation-free…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-04 Przemysław Spyra , Witold Dzwinel

State-of-the-art backpropagation-free learning methods employ local error feedback to direct iterative optimisation via gradient descent. Here, we examine the more restrictive setting where retrograde communication from neuronal outputs is…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-12-19 Robert O'Shea , Bipin Rajendran

The Forward Forward algorithm, proposed by Geoffrey Hinton in November 2022, is a novel method for training neural networks as an alternative to backpropagation. In this project, we replicate Hinton's experiments on the MNIST dataset, and…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-07-18 Saumya Gandhi , Ritu Gala , Jonah Kornberg , Advaith Sridhar

Gradient-based hyperparameter optimization has earned a widespread popularity in the context of few-shot meta-learning, but remains broadly impractical for tasks with long horizons (many gradient steps), due to memory scaling and gradient…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2021-10-01 Paul Micaelli , Amos Storkey

Backpropagation has been the cornerstone of neural network training for decades, yet its inefficiencies in time and energy consumption limit its suitability for resource-constrained edge devices. While low-precision neural network…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-07-01 Jingxiao Ma , Priyadarshini Panda , Sherief Reda

In federated learning (FL), clients with limited resources can disrupt the training efficiency. A potential solution to this problem is to leverage a new learning procedure that does not rely on backpropagation (BP). We present a novel…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-09-06 Seonghwan Park , Dahun Shin , Jinseok Chung , Namhoon Lee

Self-supervised representation learning has seen remarkable progress in the last few years, with some of the recent methods being able to learn useful image representations without labels. These methods are trained using backpropagation,…

Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition · Computer Science 2023-12-11 Jonas Brenig , Radu Timofte

Modern machine learning models are able to outperform humans on a variety of non-trivial tasks. However, as the complexity of the models increases, they consume significant amounts of power and still struggle to generalize effectively to…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-12-13 Thomas Dooms , Ing Jyh Tsang , Jose Oramas

Deep neural networks trained with backpropagation have achieved outstanding performance in vision tasks but remain biologically implausible, computationally demanding, and difficult to interpret. The Forward-Forward (FF) algorithm offers a…

Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition · Computer Science 2026-05-26 Jie-En Yao , Hong-En Chen , C. -C. Jay Kuo

The Forward-Forward (FF) learning algorithm provides a bottom-up alternative to backpropagation (BP) for training neural networks, relying on a layer-wise "goodness" function with well-designed negative samples for contrastive learning.…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-11-11 Zhichao Zhu , Yang Qi , Hengyuan Ma , Wenlian Lu , Jianfeng Feng

The back-propagation algorithm has long been the de-facto standard in optimizing weights and biases in neural networks, particularly in cutting-edge deep learning models. Its widespread adoption in fields like natural language processing,…

Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition · Computer Science 2023-07-04 Sidike Paheding , Abel A. Reyes-Angulo

The so-called Forward-Forward Algorithm (FFA) has recently gained momentum as an alternative to the conventional back-propagation algorithm for neural network learning, yielding competitive performance across various modeling tasks. By…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-01-10 Erik B. Terres-Escudero , Javier Del Ser , Pablo Garcia Bringas

Function regression/approximation is a fundamental application of machine learning. Neural networks (NNs) can be easily trained for function regression using a sufficient number of neurons and epochs. The forward-forward learning algorithm…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-10-16 Shivam Padmani , Akshay Joshi

Backpropagation (BP) has been a successful optimization technique for deep learning models. However, its limitations, such as backward- and update-locking, and its biological implausibility, hinder the concurrent updating of layers and do…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-12-22 Anzhe Cheng , Zhenkun Wang , Chenzhong Yin , Mingxi Cheng , Heng Ping , Xiongye Xiao , Shahin Nazarian , Paul Bogdan

Forward gradient learning computes a noisy directional gradient and is a biologically plausible alternative to backprop for learning deep neural networks. However, the standard forward gradient algorithm, when applied naively, suffers from…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2023-03-03 Mengye Ren , Simon Kornblith , Renjie Liao , Geoffrey Hinton

Training neural networks with reinforcement learning (RL) typically relies on backpropagation (BP), necessitating storage of activations from the forward pass for subsequent backward updates. Furthermore, backpropagating error signals…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-07-16 Daniel Tanneberg

Backpropagation is the pivotal algorithm underpinning the success of artificial neural networks, yet it has critical limitations such as biologically implausible backward locking and global error propagation. To circumvent these…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2025-09-11 James Gong , Raymond Luo , Emma Wang , Leon Ge , Bruce Li , Felix Marattukalam , Waleed Abdulla

Recent deep learning models such as ChatGPT utilizing the back-propagation algorithm have exhibited remarkable performance. However, the disparity between the biological brain processes and the back-propagation algorithm has been noted. The…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-04-24 Taewook Hwang , Hyein Seo , Sangkeun Jung

This paper aims to enhance the use of the Frank-Wolfe (FW) algorithm for training deep neural networks. Similar to any gradient-based optimization algorithm, FW suffers from high computational and memory costs when computing gradients for…

Machine Learning · Computer Science 2024-12-30 M. Rostami , S. S. Kia