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Main Authors: Ding, Shihong, Zhang, Haihan, Zhao, Hanzhen, Fang, Cong
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.09106
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author Ding, Shihong
Zhang, Haihan
Zhao, Hanzhen
Fang, Cong
author_facet Ding, Shihong
Zhang, Haihan
Zhao, Hanzhen
Fang, Cong
contents In machine learning, the scaling law describes how the model performance improves with the model and data size scaling up. From a learning theory perspective, this class of results establishes upper and lower generalization bounds for a specific learning algorithm. Here, the exact algorithm running using a specific model parameterization often offers a crucial implicit regularization effect, leading to good generalization. To characterize the scaling law, previous theoretical studies mainly focus on linear models, whereas, feature learning, a notable process that contributes to the remarkable empirical success of neural networks, is regretfully vacant. This paper studies the scaling law over a linear regression with the model being quadratically parameterized. We consider infinitely dimensional data and slope ground truth, both signals exhibiting certain power-law decay rates. We study convergence rates for Stochastic Gradient Descent and demonstrate the learning rates for variables will automatically adapt to the ground truth. As a result, in the canonical linear regression, we provide explicit separations for generalization curves between SGD with and without feature learning, and the information-theoretical lower bound that is agnostic to parametrization method and the algorithm. Our analysis for decaying ground truth provides a new characterization for the learning dynamic of the model.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_09106
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Scaling Law for Stochastic Gradient Descent in Quadratically Parameterized Linear Regression
Ding, Shihong
Zhang, Haihan
Zhao, Hanzhen
Fang, Cong
Machine Learning
In machine learning, the scaling law describes how the model performance improves with the model and data size scaling up. From a learning theory perspective, this class of results establishes upper and lower generalization bounds for a specific learning algorithm. Here, the exact algorithm running using a specific model parameterization often offers a crucial implicit regularization effect, leading to good generalization. To characterize the scaling law, previous theoretical studies mainly focus on linear models, whereas, feature learning, a notable process that contributes to the remarkable empirical success of neural networks, is regretfully vacant. This paper studies the scaling law over a linear regression with the model being quadratically parameterized. We consider infinitely dimensional data and slope ground truth, both signals exhibiting certain power-law decay rates. We study convergence rates for Stochastic Gradient Descent and demonstrate the learning rates for variables will automatically adapt to the ground truth. As a result, in the canonical linear regression, we provide explicit separations for generalization curves between SGD with and without feature learning, and the information-theoretical lower bound that is agnostic to parametrization method and the algorithm. Our analysis for decaying ground truth provides a new characterization for the learning dynamic of the model.
title Scaling Law for Stochastic Gradient Descent in Quadratically Parameterized Linear Regression
topic Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.09106