Permutation Learning with Only N Parameters: From SoftSort to Self-Organizing Gaussians

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Hauptverfasser: Barthel, Kai Uwe, Barthel, Florian, Eisert, Peter
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Barthel, Kai Uwe
Barthel, Florian
Eisert, Peter
author_facet Barthel, Kai Uwe
Barthel, Florian
Eisert, Peter
contents Sorting and permutation learning are key concepts in optimization and machine learning, especially when organizing high-dimensional data into meaningful spatial layouts. The Gumbel-Sinkhorn method, while effective, requires N*N parameters to determine a full permutation matrix, making it computationally expensive for large datasets. Low-rank matrix factorization approximations reduce memory requirements to 2NM (with M << N), but they still struggle with very large problems. SoftSort, by providing a continuous relaxation of the argsort operator, allows differentiable 1D sorting, but it faces challenges with multidimensional data and complex permutations. In this paper, we present a novel method for learning permutations using only N parameters, which dramatically reduces storage costs. Our method extends SoftSort by iteratively shuffling the N indices of the elements and applying a few SoftSort optimization steps per iteration. This modification significantly improves sorting quality, especially for multidimensional data and complex optimization criteria, and outperforms pure SoftSort. Our method offers improved memory efficiency and scalability compared to existing approaches, while maintaining high-quality permutation learning. Its dramatically reduced memory requirements make it particularly well-suited for large-scale optimization tasks, such as "Self-Organizing Gaussians", where efficient and scalable permutation learning is critical.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_13051
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Permutation Learning with Only N Parameters: From SoftSort to Self-Organizing Gaussians
Barthel, Kai Uwe
Barthel, Florian
Eisert, Peter
Machine Learning
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Sorting and permutation learning are key concepts in optimization and machine learning, especially when organizing high-dimensional data into meaningful spatial layouts. The Gumbel-Sinkhorn method, while effective, requires N*N parameters to determine a full permutation matrix, making it computationally expensive for large datasets. Low-rank matrix factorization approximations reduce memory requirements to 2NM (with M << N), but they still struggle with very large problems. SoftSort, by providing a continuous relaxation of the argsort operator, allows differentiable 1D sorting, but it faces challenges with multidimensional data and complex permutations. In this paper, we present a novel method for learning permutations using only N parameters, which dramatically reduces storage costs. Our method extends SoftSort by iteratively shuffling the N indices of the elements and applying a few SoftSort optimization steps per iteration. This modification significantly improves sorting quality, especially for multidimensional data and complex optimization criteria, and outperforms pure SoftSort. Our method offers improved memory efficiency and scalability compared to existing approaches, while maintaining high-quality permutation learning. Its dramatically reduced memory requirements make it particularly well-suited for large-scale optimization tasks, such as "Self-Organizing Gaussians", where efficient and scalable permutation learning is critical.
title Permutation Learning with Only N Parameters: From SoftSort to Self-Organizing Gaussians
topic Machine Learning
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.13051