用学习曲线指导算法选择,节省计算资源并提升效率
Meta-Learning from Learning Curves for Budget-Limited Algorithm Selection
- 基于学习曲线动态决策选哪个算法继续训练
- 结合历史数据与元学习,避免过早判断错误
- 适合算力有限、需快速筛选最优算法的场景
为特定数据集训练大量机器学习算法至收敛以选最优者,计算成本过高。在预算受限情况下,需合理选择候选算法并分配训练资源,使有限预算集中在最有希望的模型上。本文将该问题建模为马尔可夫决策过程,提出一个智能体框架:在训练过程中根据部分学习曲线,动态决定是否继续训练当前最优算法(利用)、唤醒此前暂停的算法(探索),或启动新算法。该框架还支持从过往数据集的学习曲线、数据集元特征和算法超参数中进行元学习,从而避免仅依赖当前数据集早期学习曲线的短视决策。我们引入两个在WCCI'22和AutoML-conf'22国际竞赛中使用的学习曲线基准数据集,并分析其结果。实验表明,结合元学习与学习曲线进展的方法显著优于启发式基线或随机搜索;有趣的是,在学习曲线不常交叉的情况下,仅基于小预算表现选择最佳算法的低成本基线也能表现良好。
原文摘要 · Abstract (English)
Training a large set of machine learning algorithms to convergence in order to select the best-performing algorithm for a dataset is computationally wasteful. Moreover, in a budget-limited scenario, it is crucial to carefully select an algorithm candidate and allocate a budget for training it, ensuring that the limited budget is optimally distributed to favor the most promising candidates. Casting this problem as a Markov Decision Process, we propose a novel framework in which an agent must select in the process of learning the most promising algorithm without waiting until it is fully trained. At each time step, given an observation of partial learning curves of algorithms, the agent must decide whether to allocate resources to further train the most promising algorithm (exploitation), to wake up another algorithm previously put to sleep, or to start training a new algorithm (exploration). In addition, our framework allows the agent to meta-learn from learning curves on past datasets along with dataset meta-features and algorithm hyperparameters. By incorporating meta-learning, we aim to avoid myopic decisions based solely on premature learning curves on the dataset at hand. We introduce two benchmarks of learning curves that served in international competitions at WCCI'22 and AutoML-conf'22, of which we analyze the results. Our findings show that both meta-learning and the progression of learning curves enhance the algorithm selection process, as evidenced by methods of winning teams and our DDQN baseline, compared to heuristic baselines or a random search. Interestingly, our cost-effective baseline, which selects the best-performing algorithm w.r.t. a small budget, can perform decently when learning curves do not intersect frequently.
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