Convergence of gradient descent for deep neural networks

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Author: Chatterjee, Sourav
Format: Preprint
Published: 2022
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author Chatterjee, Sourav
author_facet Chatterjee, Sourav
contents We give a simple local Polyak-Lojasiewicz (PL) criterion that guarantees linear (exponential) convergence of gradient flow and gradient descent to a zero-loss solution of a nonnegative objective. We then verify this criterion for the squared training loss of a feedforward neural network with smooth, strictly increasing activation functions, in a regime that is complementary to the usual over-parameterized analyses: the network width and depth are fixed, while the input data vectors are assumed to be linearly independent (in particular, the ambient input dimension is at least the number of data points). A notable feature of the verification is that it is constructive: it leads to a simple "positive" initialization (zero first-layer weights, strictly positive hidden-layer weights, and sufficiently large output-layer weights) under which gradient descent provably converges to an interpolating global minimizer of the training loss. We also discuss a probabilistic corollary for random initializations, clarify its dependence on the probability of the required initialization event, and provide numerical experiments showing that this theory-guided initialization can substantially accelerate optimization relative to standard random initializations at the same width.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2203_16462
institution arXiv
publishDate 2022
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Convergence of gradient descent for deep neural networks
Chatterjee, Sourav
Machine Learning
Neural and Evolutionary Computing
Optimization and Control
Probability
65K10, 90C26, 68T07
We give a simple local Polyak-Lojasiewicz (PL) criterion that guarantees linear (exponential) convergence of gradient flow and gradient descent to a zero-loss solution of a nonnegative objective. We then verify this criterion for the squared training loss of a feedforward neural network with smooth, strictly increasing activation functions, in a regime that is complementary to the usual over-parameterized analyses: the network width and depth are fixed, while the input data vectors are assumed to be linearly independent (in particular, the ambient input dimension is at least the number of data points). A notable feature of the verification is that it is constructive: it leads to a simple "positive" initialization (zero first-layer weights, strictly positive hidden-layer weights, and sufficiently large output-layer weights) under which gradient descent provably converges to an interpolating global minimizer of the training loss. We also discuss a probabilistic corollary for random initializations, clarify its dependence on the probability of the required initialization event, and provide numerical experiments showing that this theory-guided initialization can substantially accelerate optimization relative to standard random initializations at the same width.
title Convergence of gradient descent for deep neural networks
topic Machine Learning
Neural and Evolutionary Computing
Optimization and Control
Probability
65K10, 90C26, 68T07
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.16462