Dissecting the Effects of SGD Noise in Distinct Regimes of Deep Learning

Antonio Sclocchi, Mario Geiger, Matthieu Wyart
Proceedings of the 40th International Conference on Machine Learning, PMLR 202:30381-30405, 2023.

Abstract

Understanding when the noise in stochastic gradient descent (SGD) affects generalization of deep neural networks remains a challenge, complicated by the fact that networks can operate in distinct training regimes. Here we study how the magnitude of this noise $T$ affects performance as the size of the training set $P$ and the scale of initialization $\alpha$ are varied. For gradient descent, $\alpha$ is a key parameter that controls if the network is lazy’ ($\alpha\gg1$) or instead learns features ($\alpha\ll1$). For classification of MNIST and CIFAR10 images, our central results are: *(i)* obtaining phase diagrams for performance in the $(\alpha,T)$ plane. They show that SGD noise can be detrimental or instead useful depending on the training regime. Moreover, although increasing $T$ or decreasing $\alpha$ both allow the net to escape the lazy regime, these changes can have opposite effects on performance. *(ii)* Most importantly, we find that the characteristic temperature $T_c$ where the noise of SGD starts affecting the trained model (and eventually performance) is a power law of $P$. We relate this finding with the observation that key dynamical quantities, such as the total variation of weights during training, depend on both $T$ and $P$ as power laws. These results indicate that a key effect of SGD noise occurs late in training, by affecting the stopping process whereby all data are fitted. Indeed, we argue that due to SGD noise, nets must develop a strongersignal’, i.e. larger informative weights, to fit the data, leading to a longer training time. A stronger signal and a longer training time are also required when the size of the training set $P$ increases. We confirm these views in the perceptron model, where signal and noise can be precisely measured. Interestingly, exponents characterizing the effect of SGD depend on the density of data near the decision boundary, as we explain.

Cite this Paper

BibTeX
@InProceedings{pmlr-v202-sclocchi23a, title = {Dissecting the Effects of {SGD} Noise in Distinct Regimes of Deep Learning}, author = {Sclocchi, Antonio and Geiger, Mario and Wyart, Matthieu}, booktitle = {Proceedings of the 40th International Conference on Machine Learning}, pages = {30381--30405}, year = {2023}, editor = {Krause, Andreas and Brunskill, Emma and Cho, Kyunghyun and Engelhardt, Barbara and Sabato, Sivan and Scarlett, Jonathan}, volume = {202}, series = {Proceedings of Machine Learning Research}, month = {23--29 Jul}, publisher = {PMLR}, pdf = {https://proceedings.mlr.press/v202/sclocchi23a/sclocchi23a.pdf}, url = {https://proceedings.mlr.press/v202/sclocchi23a.html}, abstract = {Understanding when the noise in stochastic gradient descent (SGD) affects generalization of deep neural networks remains a challenge, complicated by the fact that networks can operate in distinct training regimes. Here we study how the magnitude of this noise $T$ affects performance as the size of the training set $P$ and the scale of initialization $\alpha$ are varied. For gradient descent, $\alpha$ is a key parameter that controls if the network is lazy’ ($\alpha\gg1$) or instead learns features ($\alpha\ll1$). For classification of MNIST and CIFAR10 images, our central results are: *(i)* obtaining phase diagrams for performance in the $(\alpha,T)$ plane. They show that SGD noise can be detrimental or instead useful depending on the training regime. Moreover, although increasing $T$ or decreasing $\alpha$ both allow the net to escape the lazy regime, these changes can have opposite effects on performance. *(ii)* Most importantly, we find that the characteristic temperature $T_c$ where the noise of SGD starts affecting the trained model (and eventually performance) is a power law of $P$. We relate this finding with the observation that key dynamical quantities, such as the total variation of weights during training, depend on both $T$ and $P$ as power laws. These results indicate that a key effect of SGD noise occurs late in training, by affecting the stopping process whereby all data are fitted. Indeed, we argue that due to SGD noise, nets must develop a strongersignal’, i.e. larger informative weights, to fit the data, leading to a longer training time. A stronger signal and a longer training time are also required when the size of the training set $P$ increases. We confirm these views in the perceptron model, where signal and noise can be precisely measured. Interestingly, exponents characterizing the effect of SGD depend on the density of data near the decision boundary, as we explain.} }
Endnote
%0 Conference Paper %T Dissecting the Effects of SGD Noise in Distinct Regimes of Deep Learning %A Antonio Sclocchi %A Mario Geiger %A Matthieu Wyart %B Proceedings of the 40th International Conference on Machine Learning %C Proceedings of Machine Learning Research %D 2023 %E Andreas Krause %E Emma Brunskill %E Kyunghyun Cho %E Barbara Engelhardt %E Sivan Sabato %E Jonathan Scarlett %F pmlr-v202-sclocchi23a %I PMLR %P 30381--30405 %U https://proceedings.mlr.press/v202/sclocchi23a.html %V 202 %X Understanding when the noise in stochastic gradient descent (SGD) affects generalization of deep neural networks remains a challenge, complicated by the fact that networks can operate in distinct training regimes. Here we study how the magnitude of this noise $T$ affects performance as the size of the training set $P$ and the scale of initialization $\alpha$ are varied. For gradient descent, $\alpha$ is a key parameter that controls if the network is lazy’ ($\alpha\gg1$) or instead learns features ($\alpha\ll1$). For classification of MNIST and CIFAR10 images, our central results are: *(i)* obtaining phase diagrams for performance in the $(\alpha,T)$ plane. They show that SGD noise can be detrimental or instead useful depending on the training regime. Moreover, although increasing $T$ or decreasing $\alpha$ both allow the net to escape the lazy regime, these changes can have opposite effects on performance. *(ii)* Most importantly, we find that the characteristic temperature $T_c$ where the noise of SGD starts affecting the trained model (and eventually performance) is a power law of $P$. We relate this finding with the observation that key dynamical quantities, such as the total variation of weights during training, depend on both $T$ and $P$ as power laws. These results indicate that a key effect of SGD noise occurs late in training, by affecting the stopping process whereby all data are fitted. Indeed, we argue that due to SGD noise, nets must develop a strongersignal’, i.e. larger informative weights, to fit the data, leading to a longer training time. A stronger signal and a longer training time are also required when the size of the training set $P$ increases. We confirm these views in the perceptron model, where signal and noise can be precisely measured. Interestingly, exponents characterizing the effect of SGD depend on the density of data near the decision boundary, as we explain.
APA
Sclocchi, A., Geiger, M. & Wyart, M.. (2023). Dissecting the Effects of SGD Noise in Distinct Regimes of Deep Learning. Proceedings of the 40th International Conference on Machine Learning, in Proceedings of Machine Learning Research 202:30381-30405 Available from https://proceedings.mlr.press/v202/sclocchi23a.html.

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