Reshaping the Forward-Forward Algorithm with a Similarity-Based Objective

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Gong, James, Luo, Raymond, Wang, Emma, Ge, Leon, Li, Bruce, Marattukalam, Felix, Abdulla, Waleed
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Gong, James
Luo, Raymond
Wang, Emma
Ge, Leon
Li, Bruce
Marattukalam, Felix
Abdulla, Waleed
author_facet Gong, James
Luo, Raymond
Wang, Emma
Ge, Leon
Li, Bruce
Marattukalam, Felix
Abdulla, Waleed
contents Backpropagation is the pivotal algorithm underpinning the success of artificial neural networks, yet it has critical limitations such as biologically implausible backward locking and global error propagation. To circumvent these constraints, the Forward-Forward algorithm was proposed as a more biologically plausible method that replaces the backward pass with an additional forward pass. Despite this advantage, the Forward-Forward algorithm significantly trails backpropagation in accuracy, and its optimal form exhibits low inference efficiency due to multiple forward passes required. In this work, the Forward-Forward algorithm is reshaped through its integration with similarity learning frameworks, eliminating the need for multiple forward passes during inference. This proposed algorithm is named Forward-Forward Algorithm Unified with Similarity-based Tuplet loss (FAUST). Empirical evaluations on MNIST, Fashion-MNIST, and CIFAR-10 datasets indicate that FAUST substantially improves accuracy, narrowing the gap with backpropagation. On CIFAR-10, FAUST achieves 56.22\% accuracy with a simple multi-layer perceptron architecture, approaching the backpropagation benchmark of 57.63\% accuracy.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_08697
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Reshaping the Forward-Forward Algorithm with a Similarity-Based Objective
Gong, James
Luo, Raymond
Wang, Emma
Ge, Leon
Li, Bruce
Marattukalam, Felix
Abdulla, Waleed
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Backpropagation is the pivotal algorithm underpinning the success of artificial neural networks, yet it has critical limitations such as biologically implausible backward locking and global error propagation. To circumvent these constraints, the Forward-Forward algorithm was proposed as a more biologically plausible method that replaces the backward pass with an additional forward pass. Despite this advantage, the Forward-Forward algorithm significantly trails backpropagation in accuracy, and its optimal form exhibits low inference efficiency due to multiple forward passes required. In this work, the Forward-Forward algorithm is reshaped through its integration with similarity learning frameworks, eliminating the need for multiple forward passes during inference. This proposed algorithm is named Forward-Forward Algorithm Unified with Similarity-based Tuplet loss (FAUST). Empirical evaluations on MNIST, Fashion-MNIST, and CIFAR-10 datasets indicate that FAUST substantially improves accuracy, narrowing the gap with backpropagation. On CIFAR-10, FAUST achieves 56.22\% accuracy with a simple multi-layer perceptron architecture, approaching the backpropagation benchmark of 57.63\% accuracy.
title Reshaping the Forward-Forward Algorithm with a Similarity-Based Objective
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.08697