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 parameter-free online learning


Better Full-Matrix Regret via Parameter-Free Online Learning

Neural Information Processing Systems

We provide online convex optimization algorithms that guarantee improved full-matrix regret bounds. These algorithms extend prior work in several ways. First, we seamlessly allow for the incorporation of constraints without requiring unknown oracle-tuning for any learning rate parameters. Second, we improve the regret of the full-matrix AdaGrad algorithm by suggesting a better learning rate value and showing how to tune the learning rate to this value on-the-fly. Third, all our bounds are obtained via a general framework for constructing regret bounds that depend on an arbitrary sequence of norms.


Parameter-Free Online Learning via Model Selection

Neural Information Processing Systems

We introduce an efficient algorithmic framework for model selection in online learning, also known as parameter-free online learning. Departing from previous work, which has focused on highly structured function classes such as nested balls in Hilbert space, we propose a generic meta-algorithm framework that achieves online model selection oracle inequalities under minimal structural assumptions. We give the first computationally efficient parameter-free algorithms that work in arbitrary Banach spaces under mild smoothness assumptions; previous results applied only to Hilbert spaces. We further derive new oracle inequalities for matrix classes, non-nested convex sets, and $\mathbb{R}^{d}$ with generic regularizers. Finally, we generalize these results by providing oracle inequalities for arbitrary non-linear classes in the online supervised learning model. These results are all derived through a unified meta-algorithm scheme using a novel multi-scale algorithm for prediction with expert advice based on random playout, which may be of independent interest.


Coin Betting and Parameter-Free Online Learning

Neural Information Processing Systems

In the recent years, a number of parameter-free algorithms have been developed for online linear optimization over Hilbert spaces and for learning with expert advice. These algorithms achieve optimal regret bounds that depend on the unknown competitors, without having to tune the learning rates with oracle choices. We present a new intuitive framework to design parameter-free algorithms for both online linear optimization over Hilbert spaces and for learning with expert advice, based on reductions to betting on outcomes of adversarial coins. We instantiate it using a betting algorithm based on the Krichevsky-Trofimov estimator. The resulting algorithms are simple, with no parameters to be tuned, and they improve or match previous results in terms of regret guarantee and per-round complexity.


Better Full-Matrix Regret via Parameter-Free Online Learning

Neural Information Processing Systems

We provide online convex optimization algorithms that guarantee improved full-matrix regret bounds. These algorithms extend prior work in several ways. First, we seamlessly allow for the incorporation of constraints without requiring unknown oracle-tuning for any learning rate parameters. Second, we improve the regret of the full-matrix AdaGrad algorithm by suggesting a better learning rate value and showing how to tune the learning rate to this value on-the-fly. Third, all our bounds are obtained via a general framework for constructing regret bounds that depend on an arbitrary sequence of norms.


Reviews: Parameter-Free Online Learning via Model Selection

Neural Information Processing Systems

SUMMARY While I am not heavily familiar with the literature on adaptive online learning, this paper seems to be a breakthrough, offering in the form of Theorem 1 a very strong result that can be leveraged to obtain adaptive (in the model complexity sense) online learning bounds in a number of settings. The efficiency, at least in the polytime sense, of the algorithms for the various settings makes these results all the more interesting. I was very surprised by the aside'' on the 1-mixability of logistic loss and the argument for circumventing the lower bound of Hazan, Koren, and Levy in the supervised learning setting. I wish that the authors could give more detail to this observation and the consequences, as the implications are so interesting that I would be (almost) sold on acceptance from this fact alone. I found the results of this paper to be very interesting, technically strong, and important, so I would strongly recommend acceptance.


Parameter-Free Online Learning via Model Selection

Foster, Dylan J., Kale, Satyen, Mohri, Mehryar, Sridharan, Karthik

Neural Information Processing Systems

We introduce an efficient algorithmic framework for model selection in online learning, also known as parameter-free online learning. Departing from previous work, which has focused on highly structured function classes such as nested balls in Hilbert space, we propose a generic meta-algorithm framework that achieves online model selection oracle inequalities under minimal structural assumptions. We give the first computationally efficient parameter-free algorithms that work in arbitrary Banach spaces under mild smoothness assumptions; previous results applied only to Hilbert spaces. We further derive new oracle inequalities for matrix classes, non-nested convex sets, and $\mathbb{R} {d}$ with generic regularizers. Finally, we generalize these results by providing oracle inequalities for arbitrary non-linear classes in the online supervised learning model.


Coin Betting and Parameter-Free Online Learning

Orabona, Francesco, Pal, David

Neural Information Processing Systems

In the recent years, a number of parameter-free algorithms have been developed for online linear optimization over Hilbert spaces and for learning with expert advice. These algorithms achieve optimal regret bounds that depend on the unknown competitors, without having to tune the learning rates with oracle choices. We present a new intuitive framework to design parameter-free algorithms for both online linear optimization over Hilbert spaces and for learning with expert advice, based on reductions to betting on outcomes of adversarial coins. We instantiate it using a betting algorithm based on the Krichevsky-Trofimov estimator. The resulting algorithms are simple, with no parameters to be tuned, and they improve or match previous results in terms of regret guarantee and per-round complexity.


Black-Box Reductions for Parameter-free Online Learning in Banach Spaces

Cutkosky, Ashok, Orabona, Francesco

arXiv.org Machine Learning

We introduce several new black-box reductions that significantly improve the design of adaptive and parameter-free online learning algorithms by simplifying analysis, improving regret guarantees, and sometimes even improving runtime. We reduce parameter-free online learning to online exp-concave optimization, we reduce optimization in a Banach space to one-dimensional optimization, and we reduce optimization over a constrained domain to unconstrained optimization. All of our reductions run as fast as online gradient descent. We use our new techniques to improve upon the previously best regret bounds for parameter-free learning, and do so for arbitrary norms.