R+R:Understanding Hyperparameter Effects in DP-SGD

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Morsbach, Felix, Reubold, Jan, Strufe, Thorsten
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Morsbach, Felix
Reubold, Jan
Strufe, Thorsten
author_facet Morsbach, Felix
Reubold, Jan
Strufe, Thorsten
contents Research on the effects of essential hyperparameters of DP-SGD lacks consensus, verification, and replication. Contradictory and anecdotal statements on their influence make matters worse. While DP-SGD is the standard optimization algorithm for privacy-preserving machine learning, its adoption is still commonly challenged by low performance compared to non-private learning approaches. As proper hyperparameter settings can improve the privacy-utility trade-off, understanding the influence of the hyperparameters promises to simplify their optimization towards better performance, and likely foster acceptance of private learning. To shed more light on these influences, we conduct a replication study: We synthesize extant research on hyperparameter influences of DP-SGD into conjectures, conduct a dedicated factorial study to independently identify hyperparameter effects, and assess which conjectures can be replicated across multiple datasets, model architectures, and differential privacy budgets. While we cannot (consistently) replicate conjectures about the main and interaction effects of the batch size and the number of epochs, we were able to replicate the conjectured relationship between the clipping threshold and learning rate. Furthermore, we were able to quantify the significant importance of their combination compared to the other hyperparameters.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2411_02051
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle R+R:Understanding Hyperparameter Effects in DP-SGD
Morsbach, Felix
Reubold, Jan
Strufe, Thorsten
Machine Learning
Cryptography and Security
Research on the effects of essential hyperparameters of DP-SGD lacks consensus, verification, and replication. Contradictory and anecdotal statements on their influence make matters worse. While DP-SGD is the standard optimization algorithm for privacy-preserving machine learning, its adoption is still commonly challenged by low performance compared to non-private learning approaches. As proper hyperparameter settings can improve the privacy-utility trade-off, understanding the influence of the hyperparameters promises to simplify their optimization towards better performance, and likely foster acceptance of private learning. To shed more light on these influences, we conduct a replication study: We synthesize extant research on hyperparameter influences of DP-SGD into conjectures, conduct a dedicated factorial study to independently identify hyperparameter effects, and assess which conjectures can be replicated across multiple datasets, model architectures, and differential privacy budgets. While we cannot (consistently) replicate conjectures about the main and interaction effects of the batch size and the number of epochs, we were able to replicate the conjectured relationship between the clipping threshold and learning rate. Furthermore, we were able to quantify the significant importance of their combination compared to the other hyperparameters.
title R+R:Understanding Hyperparameter Effects in DP-SGD
topic Machine Learning
Cryptography and Security
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.02051