Riemannian gradient descent escapes some spurious critical points on low-rank matrix manifold.
problem Spurious critical points on the boundary of low-rank matrix manifold.
method Riemannian gradient descent with dynamical low-rank approximation and rescaled gradient flow.
result Riemannian gradient descent escapes some spurious critical points on the boundary of the manifold.
Gradient flow in phase retrieval escapes spurious minima with high probability.
problem Understanding gradient-based optimization in high-dimensional non-convex functions.
method Analytical and numerical study of gradient dynamics in phase retrieval.
result Gradient flow avoids spurious minima by drifting along unstable directions.
Study reveals different types of critical points in shallow neural networks.
problem Optimization challenges in two-layer ReLU networks with symmetry.
method Symmetry analysis, bifurcation theory, and geometric group actions.
result Different types of spurious minima have distinct loss behavior.
New method avoids spurious critical points for low-rank matrix recovery.
problem Low-rank matrix recovery problems on Riemannian manifold.
method Riemannian gradient descent with random initialization.
result Riemannian gradient descent avoids spurious critical points and converges nearly linearly.
New study shows min-max algorithms can converge to non-stationary points.
problem Challenges in min-max optimization due to periodic cycles and spurious attractors.
method Analyzed state-of-the-art algorithms and heuristics in non-convex/non-concave problems.
result Spurious attractors can prevent min-max algorithms from reaching true optima.
Approximate vanishing ideal is a concept from computer algebra that studies the algebraic varieties behind perturbed data points. To capture the nonlinear structure of perturbed points, the introduction of approximation to exact vanishing ideals plays a critical role. However, such an approximation also gives rise to a…
The critical locus of the loss function of a neural network is determined by the geometry of the functional space and by the parameterization of this space by the network's weights. We introduce a natural distinction between pure critical points, which only depend on the functional space, and spurious critical points, …
DMs emerge from DenseAMs, transitioning from memorization to generalization.
problem Hindered memory retrieval in DenseAMs due to spurious states.
method Examined diffusion models through the lens of DenseAMs, focusing on their generative process.
result Identified a critical phase in DMs transitioning from memorization to generalization.
Due to the success of deep learning to solving a variety of challenging machine learning tasks, there is a rising interest in understanding loss functions for training neural networks from a theoretical aspect. Particularly, the properties of critical points and the landscape around them are of importance to determine …
New findings show Bregman proximal algorithms can get stuck near non-stationary points.
problem Bregman proximal algorithms can get stuck near non-stationary points, misleadingly suggesting convergence.
method Analysis of Bregman proximal algorithms and their behavior near non-stationary points.
result Bregman proximal algorithms can get stuck near spurious stationary points, even in convex problems.
Gradient-based algorithms are effective for many machine learning tasks, but despite ample recent effort and some progress, it often remains unclear why they work in practice in optimising high-dimensional non-convex functions and why they find good minima instead of being trapped in spurious ones. Here we present a qu…
Complex-valued neural networks avoid spurious local minima.
problem Finding spurious local minima in neural networks.
method Proved no spurious local minima for shallow complex neural networks with quadratic activations.
result Complex-valued weights eliminate spurious local minima in neural networks.
Nonnegative low-rank matrix recovery can have spurious local minima.
problem Nonnegative low-rank matrix recovery problems can have spurious local minima.
method Investigated projected gradient methods for nonnegative low-rank recovery problems.
result Benign nonconvexity holds in the fully-observed case with RIP constant δ=0 but fails in the partially-observed case and higher-rank ground truths.
The FastICA algorithm is one of the most popular iterative algorithms in the domain of linear independent component analysis. Despite its success, it is observed that FastICA occasionally yields outcomes that do not correspond to any true solutions (known as demixing vectors) of the ICA problem. These outcomes are comm…
Nonconvex matrix recovery is known to contain no spurious local minima under a restricted isometry property (RIP) with a sufficiently small RIP constant δ. If δ is too large, however, then counterexamples containing spurious local minima are known to exist. In this paper, we introduce a proof technique that is capa…
Paper shows no spurious local minima in a specific matrix factorization problem.
problem Optimization of ℓ1-norm rank-one symmetric matrix factorization. method Second-order variational analysis to study the landscape of the problem.
result Any second-order stationary point is globally optimal.
The paper analyzes how good initial guesses affect the amount of data needed for low-rank matrix recovery.
problem Theoretical guarantee of local optimization algorithms requires excessive data to prevent spurious local minima.
method Quantifies the relationship between initial guess quality and sample complexity using restricted isometry constant.
result A linear improvement in initial guess quality leads to a constant factor improvement in sample complexity.
Framework uses human annotations to make models robust to spurious correlations.
problem Machine learning models fail when unmeasured variables change test distributions.
method Human annotations to augment training examples, UV-DRO objective for robustness.
result Improvements of 5-10% on digit recognition task and 1.5-5% on NYPD Police Stops analysis.
DORA analyzes deep neural networks' internal representations to detect spurious correlations.
problem Detecting spurious correlations in deep neural networks' internal representations.
method DORA uses Extreme-Activation (EA) distance measure to assess representation similarities.
result Identifies internal representations capable of detecting spurious correlations.
Mini-batch sub-sampling in neural network training is unavoidable, due to growing data demands, memory-limited computational resources such as graphical processing units (GPUs), and the dynamics of on-line learning. In this study we specifically distinguish between static mini-batch sub-sampled loss functions, where mi…
Overparameterized models can worsen minority group errors even when overall test error improves.
problem Overparameterization exacerbates spurious correlations, harming minority groups.
method Simulations and experiments on image datasets, theoretical analysis of linear models.
result Subsampling the majority group can achieve low minority error in overparameterized models.
New insights into spurious local minima in k-means clustering.
problem Understanding and mitigating spurious local minima in k-means clustering.
method Investigating spurious local minima under a probabilistic generative model.
result Proven structures of spurious local minima for k-means clustering.
Removing spurious features can hurt model accuracy and disproportionately affect different groups.
problem Interference from spurious features in robust model performance across different groups.
method Characterization and analysis of spurious feature removal in noiseless overparameterized linear regression.
result Removal of spurious features can decrease accuracy and disproportionately affect different groups, even in balanced datasets.
SGD quickly learns a spurious XOR feature before the signal feature, revealing learning dynamics.
problem Over-reliance on spurious correlations in neural networks trained by SGD.
method Theoretical analysis of SGD on two-layer ReLU networks trained on XOR data.
result SGD learns the spurious feature first and exponentially fast, dominating the signal feature.
DSAC improves cooperative MARL with general utilities, converging faster than existing methods.
problem Improving cooperation in multi-agent reinforcement learning with nonlinear utilities.
method Decentralized Shadow Reward Actor-Critic (DSAC) that estimates local occupancy measures and derivatives.
result DSAC converges to ε-stationarity in O(1/ε^2.5) steps with high probability, finding globally optimal policies.
This research examines rare spurious correlations in neural networks and their impact on accuracy and privacy.
problem Rare spurious correlations in neural networks and their privacy risks.
method Introducing spurious patterns correlated with a fixed class to a few training examples, analyzing ℓ2 regularization and Gaussian noise. result Rare spurious correlations can significantly impact neural network accuracy and privacy, and specific mitigation methods can be effective.
The paper introduces sanity tests to detect spurious correlations in AI-guided radiology systems.
problem Detecting when AI systems perform well on development data for the wrong reasons.
method Design and implementation of sanity tests to identify spurious correlations.
result Sanity tests can identify spurious correlations in AI-guided radiology systems.
The paper provides convergence bounds for approximating a distribution using point clouds.
problem Approximating a distribution using discrete points with minimal Wasserstein distance.
method Lloyd's algorithm with Power cells, analyzed using gradient descent.
result Explicit upper bounds for the convergence speed of the Lloyd-type algorithm.
Mitigates spurious correlations without bias labels.
problem Spurious correlations bias model performance.
method Introduces a novel training objective and debiasing method DPR.
result DPR achieves state-of-the-art performance.
CLIP models robustness to spurious features is re-evaluated using a new dataset.
problem Existing robustness tests of CLIP models may not fully reflect their performance on spurious features.
method Crafted a new dataset (CounterAnimal) to reveal CLIP models' reliance on realistic spurious features.
result CLIP models are robust to spurious features learned from their training data, not ImageNet.
Study identifies and analyzes spurious correlations in data-driven models.
problem Spurious correlations in data-driven models are unreliable and hard to detect.
method Collect and analyze synthetic datasets generated from causal graphs to investigate spurious correlations.
result Patterns connecting spurious correlation hypotheses and model design choices were observed.
Self-training avoids spurious features in domain adaptation.
problem Domain shift with large differences between source and target domains.
method Entropy minimization on unlabeled target data, initialized with a source classifier.
result Entropy minimization avoids using spurious features in large domain shifts.
Nearest neighbor (k-NN) graphs are widely used in machine learning and data mining applications, and our aim is to better understand what they reveal about the cluster structure of the unknown underlying distribution of points. Moreover, is it possible to identify spurious structures that might arise due to sampling va…
Algorithm removes spurious concepts from neural network representations without harming task performance.
problem Spurious correlations hinder neural network out-of-distribution generalization.
method Iterative algorithm that identifies two orthogonal subspaces in neural network representation.
result Algorithm outperforms existing methods on computer vision and natural language processing benchmarks.
Current OOD benchmarks overestimate model robustness to spurious correlations.
problem Spurious correlations degrade OOD performance, but benchmarks show the opposite.
method Analyze OOD datasets for spurious correlations and derive conditions for robustness.
result Current OOD benchmarks are misspecified and overestimate model robustness.
Oracle-efficient algorithm for offline RL with partial data coverage.
problem Offline reinforcement learning with partial data coverage and constraints.
method PDOCRL, a primal-dual algorithm with decomposed linear-programming formulation.
result Near-optimal, near-feasible policy with \(\widetilde{\mathcal O}(ε^{-2})\) sample guarantee.
Mitigates biases in reward models using variational inference.
problem Spurious correlations in reward models that align large language models with human preferences.
method Formulates data-generating process, identifies non-spurious latent variables, and uses variational inference to recover them.
result Effective mitigation of spurious correlation issues, yielding more robust reward models.
AFR simplifies reducing reliance on spurious features, improving model performance.
problem Reducing reliance on spurious features for out-of-distribution generalization.
method Automatic Feature Reweighting (AFR) updates the model with a weighted loss.
result AFR improves model performance on benchmarks with minimal compute.
Gradient descent converges geometrically to optimal self-attention parameters.
problem Training softmax self-attention layers for linear regression.
method Structure-aware gradient descent with preconditioner and regularizer.
result Gradient descent converges geometrically to global minima.
This paper explores loss landscapes of sparse neural networks, finding unique characteristics compared to dense networks.
problem Understanding the loss landscape of sparse neural networks, especially one-hidden-layer networks.
method Analyzes sparse networks with dense and sparse final layers, focusing on linear and non-linear models.
result Sparse networks can have no spurious valleys under certain conditions, but spurious valleys and minima can exist for wide sparse networks.
Last layer retraining improves robustness to spurious correlations without high computational costs.
problem Neural networks can rely on spurious features like backgrounds for predictions.
method Simple last layer retraining on large models.
result Last layer retraining matches or outperforms state-of-the-art approaches on spurious correlation benchmarks.
Logit correction improves model performance by correcting spurious correlations.
problem Spurious correlations lead to poor model performance during inference.
method Proposes logit correction (LC) loss to mitigate spurious correlations.
result LC loss outperforms state-of-the-art solutions by 5.5% absolute improvement.
Resolves spurious correlations in causal models via intervention design.
problem Spurious correlations lead to incorrect causal models in reinforcement learning environments.
method Proposes a method to design interventions that improve causal models by incentivizing agents to find errors.
result Experimental results show improved causal models compared to baselines.
Develops tools to decompose spurious variations in causal models.
problem Understanding and decomposing spurious variations in causal relationships.
method Formal tools for decomposing spurious effects in Markovian and Semi-Markovian models.
result First results on non-parametric decomposition of spurious effects and sufficient conditions for identification.
JTT improves model worst-group accuracy without group annotations.
problem Low worst-group accuracy in standard ERM models with spurious correlations.
method Two-stage approach: first ERM, then upweight misclassified examples.
result JTT closes 75% of the gap in worst-group accuracy compared to group DRO.
The paper analyzes how deep models memorize spurious features.
problem Understanding how deep models memorize spurious features in training data.
method Characterizes spurious feature memorization via model stability and feature alignment.
result Memorization of spurious features weakens as generalization capability increases.
Online algorithm detects and removes spurious features for strong generalization.
problem Predictive models learn spurious correlations from incomplete data.
method Online continual learning algorithm that detects and removes spurious features.
result Algorithm converges to solutions with strong generalization.
New method prevents classifiers from relying on spurious correlations.
problem Group invariant learning fails to prevent classifiers from depending on spurious correlations.
method Statistical independence tests to construct groups and reweight samples by group label proportion.
result New method significantly outperforms existing group invariant learning methods in generalizing to spurious correlation shifts.