Empirical risk minimization (ERM) is a cornerstone of modern machine learning (ML), supported by advances in optimization theory that ensure efficient solutions with provable algorithmic convergence rates, which measure the speed at which optimization algorithms approach a solution, and statistical learning rates, which characterize how well the solution generalizes to unseen data. Privacy, memory, computational, and communications constraints increasingly necessitate data collection, processing, and storage across network-connected devices. In many applications, these networks operate in decentralized settings where a central server cannot be assumed, requiring decentralized ML algorithms that are both efficient and resilient. Decentralized learning, however, faces significant challenges, including an increased attack surface for adversarial interference during decentralized learning processes. This paper focuses on the man-in-the-middle (MITM) attack, which can cause models to deviate significantly from their intended ERM solutions. To address this challenge, we propose RESIST (Resilient dEcentralized learning using conSensus gradIent deScenT), an optimization algorithm designed to be robust against adversarially compromised communication links. RESIST achieves algorithmic and statistical convergence for strongly convex, Polyak-Lojasiewicz, and nonconvex ERM problems. Experimental results demonstrate the robustness and scalability of RESIST for real-world decentralized learning in adversarial environments.

This paper considers the problem of understanding the exit time for trajectories of gradient-related first-order methods from saddle neighborhoods under some initial boundary conditions. Given the 'flat' geometry around saddle points, first-order methods can struggle to escape these regions in a fast manner due to the small magnitudes of gradients encountered. In particular, while it is known that gradient-related first-order methods escape strict-saddle neighborhoods, existing analytic techniques do not explicitly leverage the local geometry around saddle points in order to control behavior of gradient trajectories. It is in this context that this paper puts forth a rigorous geometric analysis of the gradient-descent method around strict-saddle neighborhoods using matrix perturbation theory. In doing so, it provides a key result that can be used to generate an approximate gradient trajectory for any given initial conditions. In addition, the analysis leads to a linear exit-time solution for gradient-descent method under certain necessary initial conditions, which explicitly bring out the dependence on problem dimension, conditioning of the saddle neighborhood, and more, for a class of strict-saddle functions.

This paper considers the problem of understanding the behavior of a general class of accelerated gradient methods on smooth nonconvex functions. Motivated by some recent works that have proposed effective algorithms, based on Polyak's heavy ball method and the Nesterov accelerated gradient method, to achieve convergence to a local minimum of nonconvex functions, this work proposes a broad class of Nesterov-type accelerated methods and puts forth a rigorous study of these methods encompassing the escape from saddle-points and convergence to local minima through a both asymptotic and a non-asymptotic analysis. In the asymptotic regime, this paper answers an open question of whether Nesterov's accelerated gradient method (NAG) with variable momentum parameter avoids strict saddle points almost surely. This work also develops two metrics of asymptotic rate of convergence and divergence, and evaluates these two metrics for several popular standard accelerated methods such as the NAG, and Nesterov's accelerated gradient with constant momentum (NCM) near strict saddle points. In the local regime, this work provides an analysis that leads to the "linear" exit time estimates from strict saddle neighborhoods for trajectories of these accelerated methods as well the necessary conditions for the existence of such trajectories. Finally, this work studies a sub-class of accelerated methods that can converge in convex neighborhoods of nonconvex functions with a near optimal rate to a local minima and at the same time this sub-class offers superior saddle-escape behavior compared to that of NAG.