arXiv research

The paper proves deep learning can be robust with certain loss functions.

We present $α$-loss, $α\in [1,\infty]$, a tunable loss function for binary classification that bridges log-loss ($α=1$) and $0$-$1$ loss ($α= \infty$). We prove that $α$-loss has an equivalent margin-based form and is classification-calibrated, two desirable properties for a good surrogate loss function for the ideal y…

We consider distributed convex optimization problems originated from sample average approximation of stochastic optimization, or empirical risk minimization in machine learning. We assume that each machine in the distributed computing system has access to a local empirical loss function, constructed with i.i.d. data sa…

Deep networks can memorize random labels; symmetric loss improves this.

Recent years have seen adversarial losses been applied to many fields. Their applications extend beyond the originally proposed generative modeling to conditional generative and discriminative settings. While prior work has proposed various output activation functions and regularization approaches, some open questions …

Study risk bounds for distributed ERM with general loss functions and hypothesis spaces.

Multi-output is essential in machine learning that it might suffer from nonconforming residual distributions, i.e., the multi-output residual distributions are not conforming to the expected distribution. In this paper, we propose "Wrapped Loss Function" to wrap the original loss function to alleviate the problem. This…

A new method approximates expected empirical loss for stochastic deep learning tasks.

Develops a framework for consistent loss functions with variable transformations.

In this paper, we propose a novel {\em $e$-exponentiated} transformation, $0 \le e<1$, for loss functions. When the transformation is applied to a convex loss function, the transformed loss function become more robust to outliers. Using a novel generalization error bound, we have theoretically shown that the transforme…

In this paper we study the differentially private Empirical Risk Minimization (ERM) problem in different settings. For smooth (strongly) convex loss function with or without (non)-smooth regularization, we give algorithms that achieve either optimal or near optimal utility bounds with less gradient complexity compared …

New loss function calibrates WW-hinge loss for multiclass SVM.

We study the rates of convergence from empirical surrogate risk minimizers to the Bayes optimal classifier. Specifically, we introduce the notion of \emph{consistency intensity} to characterize a surrogate loss function and exploit this notion to obtain the rate of convergence from an empirical surrogate risk minimizer…

Empirical risk minimization frequently employs convex surrogates to underlying discrete loss functions in order to achieve computational tractability during optimization. However, classical convex surrogates can only tightly bound modular loss functions, sub-modular functions or supermodular functions separately while …

A novel dictionary-based approach for predicting functions.

Study on using random subspaces for ERM with various loss functions.

The goal of regression and classification methods in supervised learning is to minimize the empirical risk, that is, the expectation of some loss function quantifying the prediction error under the empirical distribution. When facing scarce training data, overfitting is typically mitigated by adding regularization term…

Study analyzes landscape complexity of empirical loss functions with correlated data.

Clarifies model-based RL's theoretical issues and counterexamples for popular losses.

EnsLoss combines multiple loss functions to prevent overfitting in classification.

Develops a new framework for robust regression with EGM.

Listwise learning-to-rank methods form a powerful class of ranking algorithms that are widely adopted in applications such as information retrieval. These algorithms learn to rank a set of items by optimizing a loss that is a function of the entire set -- as a surrogate to a typically non-differentiable ranking metric.…

We design simple screening tests to automatically discard data samples in empirical risk minimization without losing optimization guarantees. We derive loss functions that produce dual objectives with a sparse solution. We also show how to regularize convex losses to ensure such a dual sparsity-inducing property, and p…

New loss function equivalence reveals PER's uniform sampling can be improved.

Paper explores connections between loss functions and consistency in binary classification and regression.

The Nyström method improves learning efficiency for convex losses.

The minimization of loss functions is the heart and soul of Machine Learning. In this paper, we propose an off-the-shelf optimization approach that can minimize virtually any non-differentiable and non-decomposable loss function (e.g. Miss-classification Rate, AUC, F1, Jaccard Index, Mathew Correlation Coefficient, etc…

In this work we investigate to which extent one can recover class probabilities within the empirical risk minimization (ERM) paradigm. The main aim of our paper is to extend existing results and emphasize the tight relations between empirical risk minimization and class probability estimation. Based on existing literat…

Study on neural networks with quadratic activation functions, focusing on optimization and generalization.

Let $\cF$ be a set of $M$ classification procedures with values in $[-1,1]$. Given a loss function, we want to construct a procedure which mimics at the best possible rate the best procedure in $\cF$. This fastest rate is called optimal rate of aggregation. Considering a continuous scale of loss functions with various …

Polyak step size GD reaches final radius of convergence after log iterations.

New margin-based learning guarantees improve generalization bounds.

New loss function connects learning rate and momentum.

Paper introduces a new robust loss function for RL.

SGLB boosts machine learning with Langevin diffusion for multimodal loss functions.

We study differentially private (DP) algorithms for stochastic convex optimization (SCO). In this problem the goal is to approximately minimize the population loss given i.i.d. samples from a distribution over convex and Lipschitz loss functions. A long line of existing work on private convex optimization focuses on th…

DLM for BNNs fails to improve over ELBO optimization.

This work proposes the Bregman-Tweedie classification model and analyzes the domain structure of the extended exponential function, an extension of the classic generalized exponential function with additional scaling parameter, and related high-level mathematical structures, such as the Bregman-Tweedie loss function an…

Transformer models outperform LSTM in financial forecasting with MADL loss.

New loss function improves convergence rate for neural networks.

Local update methods' performance depends on learning rates, affecting convergence rates and alignment with true loss.

In this paper, we study and analyze the mini-batch version of StochAstic Recursive grAdient algoritHm (SARAH), a method employing the stochastic recursive gradient, for solving empirical loss minimization for the case of nonconvex losses. We provide a sublinear convergence rate (to stationary points) for general noncon…

New algorithm improves gradient-based ERM for smooth convex losses.

New loss functions based on f-divergences improve language model performance.

Learning with a {\it convex loss} function has been a dominating paradigm for many years. It remains an interesting question how non-convex loss functions help improve the generalization of learning with broad applicability. In this paper, we study a family of objective functions formed by truncating traditional loss f…

In most machine learning training paradigms a fixed, often handcrafted, loss function is assumed to be a good proxy for an underlying evaluation metric. In this work we assess this assumption by meta-learning an adaptive loss function to directly optimize the evaluation metric. We propose a sample efficient reinforceme…

New function class characterizes loss landscape of deep neural networks without over-parametrization.

Study of loss functions for learning to defer, proving consistency.