Multi-Task Learning as a Bargaining Game

Aviv Navon, Aviv Shamsian, Idan Achituve, Haggai Maron, Kenji Kawaguchi, Gal Chechik, Ethan Fetaya
Proceedings of the 39th International Conference on Machine Learning, PMLR 162:16428-16446, 2022.

Abstract

In Multi-task learning (MTL), a joint model is trained to simultaneously make predictions for several tasks. Joint training reduces computation costs and improves data efficiency; however, since the gradients of these different tasks may conflict, training a joint model for MTL often yields lower performance than its corresponding single-task counterparts. A common method for alleviating this issue is to combine per-task gradients into a joint update direction using a particular heuristic. In this paper, we propose viewing the gradients combination step as a bargaining game, where tasks negotiate to reach an agreement on a joint direction of parameter update. Under certain assumptions, the bargaining problem has a unique solution, known as the Nash Bargaining Solution, which we propose to use as a principled approach to multi-task learning. We describe a new MTL optimization procedure, Nash-MTL, and derive theoretical guarantees for its convergence. Empirically, we show that Nash-MTL achieves state-of-the-art results on multiple MTL benchmarks in various domains.

Cite this Paper

BibTeX
@InProceedings{pmlr-v162-navon22a, title = {Multi-Task Learning as a Bargaining Game}, author = {Navon, Aviv and Shamsian, Aviv and Achituve, Idan and Maron, Haggai and Kawaguchi, Kenji and Chechik, Gal and Fetaya, Ethan}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 39th International Conference on Machine Learning}, pages = {16428--16446}, year = {2022}, editor = {Chaudhuri, Kamalika and Jegelka, Stefanie and Song, Le and Szepesvari, Csaba and Niu, Gang and Sabato, Sivan}, volume = {162}, series = {Proceedings of Machine Learning Research}, month = {17--23 Jul}, publisher = {PMLR}, pdf = {https://proceedings.mlr.press/v162/navon22a/navon22a.pdf}, url = {https://proceedings.mlr.press/v162/navon22a.html}, abstract = {In Multi-task learning (MTL), a joint model is trained to simultaneously make predictions for several tasks. Joint training reduces computation costs and improves data efficiency; however, since the gradients of these different tasks may conflict, training a joint model for MTL often yields lower performance than its corresponding single-task counterparts. A common method for alleviating this issue is to combine per-task gradients into a joint update direction using a particular heuristic. In this paper, we propose viewing the gradients combination step as a bargaining game, where tasks negotiate to reach an agreement on a joint direction of parameter update. Under certain assumptions, the bargaining problem has a unique solution, known as the Nash Bargaining Solution, which we propose to use as a principled approach to multi-task learning. We describe a new MTL optimization procedure, Nash-MTL, and derive theoretical guarantees for its convergence. Empirically, we show that Nash-MTL achieves state-of-the-art results on multiple MTL benchmarks in various domains.} }
Endnote
%0 Conference Paper %T Multi-Task Learning as a Bargaining Game %A Aviv Navon %A Aviv Shamsian %A Idan Achituve %A Haggai Maron %A Kenji Kawaguchi %A Gal Chechik %A Ethan Fetaya %B Proceedings of the 39th International Conference on Machine Learning %C Proceedings of Machine Learning Research %D 2022 %E Kamalika Chaudhuri %E Stefanie Jegelka %E Le Song %E Csaba Szepesvari %E Gang Niu %E Sivan Sabato %F pmlr-v162-navon22a %I PMLR %P 16428--16446 %U https://proceedings.mlr.press/v162/navon22a.html %V 162 %X In Multi-task learning (MTL), a joint model is trained to simultaneously make predictions for several tasks. Joint training reduces computation costs and improves data efficiency; however, since the gradients of these different tasks may conflict, training a joint model for MTL often yields lower performance than its corresponding single-task counterparts. A common method for alleviating this issue is to combine per-task gradients into a joint update direction using a particular heuristic. In this paper, we propose viewing the gradients combination step as a bargaining game, where tasks negotiate to reach an agreement on a joint direction of parameter update. Under certain assumptions, the bargaining problem has a unique solution, known as the Nash Bargaining Solution, which we propose to use as a principled approach to multi-task learning. We describe a new MTL optimization procedure, Nash-MTL, and derive theoretical guarantees for its convergence. Empirically, we show that Nash-MTL achieves state-of-the-art results on multiple MTL benchmarks in various domains.
APA
Navon, A., Shamsian, A., Achituve, I., Maron, H., Kawaguchi, K., Chechik, G. & Fetaya, E.. (2022). Multi-Task Learning as a Bargaining Game. Proceedings of the 39th International Conference on Machine Learning, in Proceedings of Machine Learning Research 162:16428-16446 Available from https://proceedings.mlr.press/v162/navon22a.html.

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