Reviews: How SGD Selects the Global Minima in Over-parameterized Learning: A Dynamical Stability Perspective
–Neural Information Processing Systems
This paper examines, theoretically and empirically, how does SGD select the global minima it converges to. It first defines two properties ("sharpness" and "non-uniformity") of a fixed point, and how these determine, together with batch size, the maximal learning rate in which the fixed point is stable under SGD dynamics (both in mean and variance). It is then demonstrated numerically how these results relate affect the learning rate and batch size affect the selection of minima, and the dynamics of "escape" from sharp minima". Clarity: This paper is nicely written, and quite clear. Quality: Seems correct, except some fixable errors (see below), and the numerical results seem reasonably convincing. Originality: The results are novel to the best of my knowledge. Significance: The results shed light on the connections between sharpness, learning rate, batch size, and highlight the importance of "non-uniformity". These connections are not well understood and have received attention since ...
Neural Information Processing Systems
Oct-7-2024, 11:38:21 GMT