Related papers: Single Point-Based Distributed Zeroth-Order Optimi…
In this work, we consider a distributed multi-agent stochastic optimization problem, where each agent holds a local objective function that is smooth and convex, and that is subject to a stochastic process. The goal is for all agents to…
Zeroth-order optimization (ZO) has been a powerful framework for solving black-box problems, which estimates gradients using zeroth-order data to update variables iteratively. The practical applicability of ZO critically depends on the…
In this study, we consider an optimization problem with uncertainty dependent on decision variables, which has recently attracted attention due to its importance in machine learning and pricing applications. In this problem, the gradient of…
Zeroth-order (ZO) optimization is indispensable for complex non-convex tasks where explicit gradients are computationally prohibitive or strictly inaccessible. For deploying ZO methods over distributed heterogeneous networks, the gradient…
This paper investigates how to accelerate the convergence of distributed optimization algorithms on nonconvex problems with zeroth-order information available only. We propose a zeroth-order (ZO) distributed primal-dual stochastic…
This paper studies a compressed momentum-based single-point zeroth-order algorithm for stochastic distributed nonconvex optimization, aiming to alleviate communication overhead and address the unavailability of explicit gradient…
We consider the problem of minimizing a high-dimensional objective function, which may include a regularization term, using (possibly noisy) evaluations of the function. Such optimization is also called derivative-free, zeroth-order, or…
Recently introduced distributed zeroth-order optimization (ZOO) algorithms have shown their utility in distributed reinforcement learning (RL). Unfortunately, in the gradient estimation process, almost all of them require random samples…
The dual challenges of prohibitive communication overhead and the impracticality of gradient computation due to data privacy or black-box constraints in distributed systems motivate this work on communication-constrained gradient-free…
This paper investigates the stochastic distributed nonconvex optimization problem of minimizing a global cost function formed by the summation of $n$ local cost functions. We solve such a problem by involving zeroth-order (ZO) information…
In this work, we focus on the study of stochastic zeroth-order (ZO) optimization which does not require first-order gradient information and uses only function evaluations. The problem of ZO optimization has emerged in many recent machine…
In this paper, we consider a distributed stochastic non-convex optimization problem, which is about minimizing a sum of $n$ local cost functions over a network with only zeroth-order information. A novel single-loop Decentralized…
We study a class of zeroth-order distributed optimization problems, where each agent can control a partial vector and observe a local cost that depends on the joint vector of all agents, and the agents can communicate with each other with…
We consider a zeroth-order distributed optimization problem, where the global objective function is a black-box function and, as such, its gradient information is inaccessible to the local agents. Instead, the local agents can only use the…
In this paper, we consider a stochastic distributed nonconvex optimization problem with the cost function being distributed over $n$ agents having access only to zeroth-order (ZO) information of the cost. This problem has various machine…
The graduated optimization approach, also known as the continuation method, is a popular heuristic to solving non-convex problems that has received renewed interest over the last decade. Despite its popularity, very little is known in terms…
Zeroth-order optimization (ZOO) is an important framework for stochastic optimization when gradients are unavailable or expensive to compute. A potential limitation of existing ZOO methods is the bias inherent in most gradient estimators…
We study the problem of distributed zero-order optimization for a class of strongly convex functions. They are formed by the average of local objectives, associated to different nodes in a prescribed network of connections. We propose a…
This paper studies distributed stochastic nonconvex optimization problems with compressed communication and differential privacy, in which each agent aims to minimize the sum of all agents' cost functions by using local compressed…
Zeroth-order (ZO) optimization with ordinal feedback has emerged as a fundamental problem in modern machine learning systems, particularly in human-in-the-loop settings such as reinforcement learning from human feedback, preference…