论文标题
神经元上的梯度下降及其与近似二阶优化的链接
Gradient Descent on Neurons and its Link to Approximate Second-Order Optimization
论文作者
论文摘要
人们认为二阶优化器具有加快神经网络训练的潜力，但是由于曲率矩阵的尺寸巨大，它们通常需要近似值才能计算。最成功的近似家庭是Kronecker因块状曲率估计值（KFAC）。在这里，我们结合了先前工作的工具，以评估确切的二阶更新和仔细的消融以建立令人惊讶的结果：由于其近似值，KFAC与二阶更新无关，尤其是它大大优于真实的二阶更新。这一挑战广泛地相信，并立即提出了为什么KFAC表现如此出色的问题。为了回答这个问题，我们提出了强烈的证据，表明KFAC近似于一阶算法，该算法在神经元上执行梯度下降而不是权重。最后，我们表明，这种优化器通常在计算成本和数据效率方面改善了KFAC。
Second-order optimizers are thought to hold the potential to speed up neural network training, but due to the enormous size of the curvature matrix, they typically require approximations to be computationally tractable. The most successful family of approximations are Kronecker-Factored, block-diagonal curvature estimates (KFAC). Here, we combine tools from prior work to evaluate exact second-order updates with careful ablations to establish a surprising result: Due to its approximations, KFAC is not closely related to second-order updates, and in particular, it significantly outperforms true second-order updates. This challenges widely held believes and immediately raises the question why KFAC performs so well. Towards answering this question we present evidence strongly suggesting that KFAC approximates a first-order algorithm, which performs gradient descent on neurons rather than weights. Finally, we show that this optimizer often improves over KFAC in terms of computational cost and data-efficiency.
