Faster Predictive Coding Networks via Better Initialization

Fuente: arXiv
Guardado en:
Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Pinchetti, Luca, Frieder, Simon, Lukasiewicz, Thomas, Salvatori, Tommaso
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2026
Materias:
Acceso en línea:
Etiquetas: Agregar Etiqueta
Sin Etiquetas, Sea el primero en etiquetar este registro!
_version_ 1866910004211089408
author Pinchetti, Luca
Frieder, Simon
Lukasiewicz, Thomas
Salvatori, Tommaso
author_facet Pinchetti, Luca
Frieder, Simon
Lukasiewicz, Thomas
Salvatori, Tommaso
contents Research aimed at scaling up neuroscience inspired learning algorithms for neural networks is accelerating. Recently, a key research area has been the study of energy-based learning algorithms such as predictive coding, due to their versatility and mathematical grounding. However, the applicability of such methods is held back by the large computational requirements caused by their iterative nature. In this work, we address this problem by showing that the choice of initialization of the neurons in a predictive coding network matters significantly and can notably reduce the required training times. Consequently, we propose a new initialization technique for predictive coding networks that aims to preserve the iterative progress made on previous training samples. Our approach suggests a promising path toward reconciling the disparities between predictive coding and backpropagation in terms of computational efficiency and final performance. In fact, our experiments demonstrate substantial improvements in convergence speed and final test loss in both supervised and unsupervised settings.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_20895
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Faster Predictive Coding Networks via Better Initialization
Pinchetti, Luca
Frieder, Simon
Lukasiewicz, Thomas
Salvatori, Tommaso
Machine Learning
I.2.6
Research aimed at scaling up neuroscience inspired learning algorithms for neural networks is accelerating. Recently, a key research area has been the study of energy-based learning algorithms such as predictive coding, due to their versatility and mathematical grounding. However, the applicability of such methods is held back by the large computational requirements caused by their iterative nature. In this work, we address this problem by showing that the choice of initialization of the neurons in a predictive coding network matters significantly and can notably reduce the required training times. Consequently, we propose a new initialization technique for predictive coding networks that aims to preserve the iterative progress made on previous training samples. Our approach suggests a promising path toward reconciling the disparities between predictive coding and backpropagation in terms of computational efficiency and final performance. In fact, our experiments demonstrate substantial improvements in convergence speed and final test loss in both supervised and unsupervised settings.
title Faster Predictive Coding Networks via Better Initialization
topic Machine Learning
I.2.6
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.20895